


The Cult

by lord_of_cats



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Body Horror, Body Modification, Cults, F/F, F/M, Gore, Humanstuck, M/M, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Other, Sacrifices, Sadstuck, its about a cult lead by the ancestors, seriously don't read if you get sick easily, this entire thing is fucked up, very disturbing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-11
Updated: 2016-06-06
Packaged: 2018-06-07 19:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6820705
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lord_of_cats/pseuds/lord_of_cats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This world is impure.<br/>It is ruled by cruel dictators who think only of themselves and their own wants, other than the needs of others.<br/>Our Earth will be plunged into chaos if we, if I, don't do something.<br/>There is only one hope for humanity-<br/>You must find the ones that played The Game.<br/>You will find them, and use them to unlock a portal into a new universe, a better universe.<br/>But first, you must make everything like it was in the game.</p><p>You must make them...Gods...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Series of Unfortunate Events

Your name is Jade Harley and you are running from a creepy masked guy with a bloodied knife.  
Said knife is covered in the blood of your grandfather, whose corpse is lying a little way away, trapped in a bloody tea party with one of his treasured blue ladies.

But let’s forget this is happening right now. Jade, why don’t you introduce yourself to us?  
Well…ok then! Despite the situation you’re in, you always love making new friends!

Your name is Jade Harley and you are sixteen years old. You live on a nearly uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with your best friend Becquerel and newly deceased Grandpa Harley.  
Your hobbies include TV shows that everyone says is for kids, gardening and imagining what it’s like to have a thick fluffy mane, and to gallop through the undergrowth of a forest with a pack of wolves.  
What?! You’re not a furry!  
Well…maybe a little.  
But not THAT kind of furry.

Anyway, you should probably get back to the situation at hand.

You have no idea how this guy ended up on your secluded island home, but he’s here. You can’t fight him, all you can do is run.

Becquerel, your loyal dog is nowhere to be found. 

You’re trying not to cry as you stumble barefoot and in your pyjamas through the islands forest.  
The man behind you is gaining on you, but you know this forest like the back of your hand. You should be able to outwit him pretty quickly if you just-well fuck.

There’s another one now, standing over where you were about to head.  
That’s fine, you’ll just head this way then-

Oh great, there’s another one.

You spin around in a panic. You’re completely surrounded by them, and they’re closing in.

“Bec! Bec please! Help me! Someone, anybody? Help!” You start screaming, tears pooling underneath your glasses and trickling down your cheeks.

In a flash, as if hearing your distress, Bec is there and you feel so safe and protected. But then, he’s pushed back and you can see a long stripe of red, stark against white fur, which runs all the way down his side.  
“BEC! Oh, you did not just hurt my dog.” You snarl, reaching towards the spot where your rifle is always kept. But your hands brush against nothing, because fucking shit, you’re in your pyjamas, you don’t have it with you.  
Dammit, Grandpa always warned you this would happen if you went out without it. Now look at you.

Just like Bec, the men knock you down easily, your head hitting a rock when it hit the ground.

The last thing you see before the blackness claims you is the mask of the bastard that killed your Grandad. Its got a grey background, and a strange red symbol that strangely reminds you of the zodiac sign for cancer.

 

Your name is John Egbert, and you are very worried for your cousin and best friend Jade Harley.

But before telling us about your concerns for Jade, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?  
Umm…sure…why not.

Your name is John Egbert and you are sixteen years old. You live in the suburbs of Washington State with your Dad. You enjoy pranks, movies that everyone else says is shit and a little bit of amateur coding. You say amateur because you’re not very good. But you’re learning.  
Your Dad always told you to be polite and courteous to new people, but you’re still kind of a douche.

Anyway, can we get back to the subject at hand please?

Yes, good. You’re worried about your cousin and best friend Jade Harley.

It started when she stopped answering your Skype calls. She still answered pesterchum-but it was different.  
You and she had this weird thing going on where you’d send really terrible selfies to each other. The worse the derp-face, the better the selfie. It was kind of a competition between the two of you.  
But now she never sends selfies anymore, plus she crowned you ‘Derp-Selfie King’ when you confronted her about it. Which was, really weird, because she loved that game and was incredibly competitive about it.

Rose and Dave said it’s the same with them.

Then one day, she just…stopped.

Stopped responding, although you know she’s reading your really long messages of concern.  
Rose and Dave say she hasn’t replied to them either.

You hope she’s ok…

 

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are struggling to breathe in this heat.

While the reader says they are pretty hot, they’d like to get to know you before anything happens.

No, that’s not what you meant! You mean your house is on fire and you’re trapped inside!

Oh…well tell us about yourself anyway.

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are sixteen years old. You live in an isolated mansion in the state of New York with your alcoholic mother.  
You enjoy knitting, writing and worshipping the occult. What? It’s perfectly normal for a teenage girl your age to enjoy learning about the grimdark horrors that lurk in the deep dark depths.

Anyway, can we please get back to your burning house?

Yep, your house is probably going to blow up with the amount of alcohol inside.  
And you’re trapped inside.

Nevertheless, you’re trying to escape anyway. You’d rather not burn to death.

So here you are, dashing around your burning house as the flames close in.   
You dash down the long, wizard-statue-filled corridor, towards the end of the hallway.  
You can just see the light at the end of the tunnel (a reasonably unburnt, fire-free window).  
You dodge a flaming wizard statue and run as fast as your legs can take you. You almost hesitate at the edge of the windowsill, looking down at the flaming forest below you. But you feel a tongue of pain lick its way up your leg, searing its way into your skin.  
Its jump or be burned alive.

You jump.

You crash through the burning undergrowth, ignoring the sensation of pain that burns your skin. You land in an undignified heap of burnt limbs and tattered clothes.  
You struggle to your feet, the forest is on fire and you need to get out of there, but they refuse to co-operate. You trip and tumble down a formally grassy, now-on-fire hill.

Something in your mind ‘warns you about those stairs bro’ but there are no stairs. Only fire.

As you roll to a stop, your vision starts to go blurry and you begin to hack up what feels like your lungs.  
Determined, you struggle again to rise. But this time, a foot holds you down.

You scream in surprise, fear and pain as your hand is crushed underneath a booted foot. You sense a face leaning towards yours and hear the harsh whisper of his voice.

“Goodnight Miss Lalonde”

Everything goes black.

 

Your name is John Egbert and you haven’t heard from your best friend Rose Lalonde in a few weeks.

Unlike Jade, who gradually dropped off the face of the Earth, Rose just…disappeared.  
You looked into the news, searching for any evidence of a missing teenager, but found nothing.  
You’ve always had the sinking suspicion that all your friends secretly hate you. That you were just a really annoying nerd and they were too polite to say anything.   
You used to always tell yourself it’s not true, it’s just your teenage mind being paranoid. But you’re not sure you believe it anymore.  
Dave’s the only one left now who still talks to you. You’re terrified he’ll leave you too, so you’re becoming kind of clingy, texting, calling and skyping him at every opportunity. You know he’s getting kind of frustrated, but you can’t help it.

You’d be heart-broken if anything happened to him.

 

Your name is Dave Strider and you’re totally fine right now.

In that case, why don’t you introduce yourself?

Well sure, if the dear reader is so invested in your life.

Your name is Dave Strider and you’re sixteen years old. You live in a shitty apartment in Texas with your cool-as-fuck older Bro. You’re also cool as fuck, in case anyone was wondering.   
You fucking love laying down sick beats, dead things in jars and rad irony. You are also quite the photographer. You pretend that you love it because you take photos of naked people, but honestly? You just love taking awesome, hipster photos.

Now that you’ve been fully introduced, can we get back to the cool thing you are doing.

Well right now you’re on the phone to your best bro John Egbert, who’s blabbing away about something or other. You’re not paying any real attention.  
He’s been calling you an awful lot lately, not that you mind. You seriously enjoy listening to him talk about shitty movies and video games. You know he’s worried about Rose and Jade, and deep down, so are you. But you don’t show it and tell him everything is going to be ok.  
You doubt it is.

But the other thing you’re doing?   
You’re being stalked.

They think they’re being sneaky, but they’re really not.  
They’ve been following you for about 30 feet back. You’ve been trying to lose them for 40.

You slip down a darkened alleyway. In hindsight, this was a bad idea, but when you’re nervous, you make terrible decisions and ramble. Like you’re doing right now.

“Honestly John, the Queen of England is such a fucking badass. She would definitely be able to judo-flip any attackers, she don’t need no fucking body guards.”  
“Dave, Queen Elizabeth the Second is a ninety year old woman.”  
“So? Jesus fucking Christ John, that’s so ageist. I can’t believe you’d say that. Tumblr is so fucking offended and triggered right now. Queenie would definitely judo-flip you for this.”   
The stalker was still following me, their steps falling in step with mine. I can hear John’s obnoxious, nasally laugh burst into my eardrums.  
“Haha, oh my god Dave. The queen wouldn’t judo flip me! I doubt she has the strength to do so with her weak noodle old person arms.”  
You smile to yourself and stop walking down the alleyway.  
“John, can you hold on for a moment please?” You don’t wait for an answer and put your phone on a nearby dustbin, turning on the loudspeaker so you could hear John.

Unsheathing your sword, you whirl around and point it to your stalkers throat.  
Your stalker is wearing a black cloak with red trim, as well as a weird mask with a sideways ‘69’ on it. You laugh internally at that.

“Why the fuck are you stalking me?” You snap at the stalker.  
“Oh, we got a fighter? How fun! The other two were easy to convert!” The voice was definitely feminine, with hints of a calm and confident mocking tone.  
“Other two…? You mean Rose and Jade? What the fuck did you do to them?”   
The masked stalker giggled. “I wasn’t the one to convert them! My job is to convert you!”

With a flash, a sword appeared in her grasp. She lunged, and I barely managed to block in time. She lunged again, but this time I was ready. I knocked her sword aside with my own and thrusted.  
I managed to graze her side, cutting her (surprisingly tough) skin in the process.  
Instead of the red blood I was expecting, a deep cerulean hue stained the woman’s cloak.  
I faltered for a second. What was this woman?

As if sensing my thoughts, she spoke, strange glee in her words.  
“My name is Aranea Serket, and I will be the one to convert you, don’t worry, soon you will become a God.”  
At that, she thrust her sword into my chest so fast, I couldn’t do anything to stop her. 

My sword fell to the ground as I staggered backwards, bumping against the alleyway wall. Your legs failed you, and you slid down the wall, a trail of blood at you wake.

You felt your consciousness fading. All you could hear was John’s distressed screams of ‘Dave!’  
Clutching your stomach, you call back to him. A last goodbye of sorts before you die.

“John…I’m so sorry…”


	2. The Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The kids wake up, wondering what the fuck just happened.  
> Shit happens.

Your name is Jade Harley and ooooh everything hurts.

You’re lying in bed, all tucked in and everything. You hope that the last few memories of yours was just a dream.  
But then you look down at your torn, blood splattered pyjama’s and realise that no, it wasn’t.

But that means…Grandpa…Bec…  
They’re dead, aren’t they?

You feel…weird, as if your body is on fire, but freezing at the same time. As your bare skin rubs against the bedsheets, something feels very…furry.   
You don’t shave your legs, but they feel way too furry to be normal.

Shakily, you raise your leg to eye level.  
And promptly drop it with a yelp of surprise.

It’s, it’s…completely covered in white, fluffy fur, just like Becs.

Hobbling, you stumble over to the mirror in your bedroom.  
You raise bright green eyes to the mirror and scream at what you see.

Your arms, back and legs are completely covered in white fur. Your hands and feet have fused to become paws, with sharp points towards the tips.  
Your normally long black hair has been shaved back completely, and sewn onto your skull is two white dog ears. Where your human ears once were is now bloody chunks of gore.  
You can feel the extended part of your spine fluff up in disgust. Great, you have a tail now.  
Your eyes were once normal, human ones. Now they’re glowing a bright, radioactive green, shooting sparks of white and yellow flying across your room.  
A corresponding radioactive glow is on your chest. 

You lift up your shirt to check out this glow.

Something has been shoved into your chest and sewn it in, like you were some kind of living rag doll.

You let out a growl of fury and pick up the closest object (your hairbrush) and hurl it at the wall.

The hairbrush glows green, then grows to the size of your bed.

You reel back in shock, hackles raised.

Slowly, you pad forward and raise a paw towards the bedbrush.  
With a glow of green, your paw and the bedbrush light up, your bedbrush reducing to the size of a thimble.  
Amazed, you crawl over to it, scooping up your tiny timblebrush in your hand.  
You giggle to yourself, a little hysterically.

A ping draws your attention to one of your many computers.

The bright blue text informed you this was a message from John.  
You look at your bloodied paws, to your lunchtop, paws, lunchtop.

You can’t let them know.

 

Your name is Rose Lalonde and this doesn’t hurt as much as it should.  
Considering the fact you just got burnt alive that is.

You’re sitting in the middle of the burnt out husk of your room, floating above your thoroughly charred bed surrounded by glowing, ethereal light.

You can still see (surprisingly, because you’re pretty sure your eyes become burnt beyond repair. But your vision is pretty blurry), but you can see.  
Let’s put it this way.   
Where before you died, you could see with your eyes, now you can see with your mind’s eye as well.  
You can sense what your friends are doing and where they are. You can sense your surroundings, but you can’t see them.

Using your newfound telekinesis, you call upon your laptop. You sense it floating towards you and reach out to begin typing.

You select Jades icon.  
You knew about Jade’s…abnormalities, you guessed it happened a while back. You didn’t tell John and Dave, because Jade asked you not to and you didn’t want to worry them

You ask Jade to come quick.

You wait ten minutes before she appears in a flash of green electricity.   
You turn your glowing, empty eyes towards her, smiling absent-mindedly.

“Hello Jade, I suppose we have a thing in common now, huh?”

 

Your name is Dave Strider and you want to die.   
Again.

You woke up in the abandoned alleyway in a pool of your own blood and a clock fused to your chest.  
You don’t know what exactly it does yet, but it hurts. With every tick of the clock, it sends a pulse of pain around your body.

Your first thought was of how much it hurt, then you thought of John.  
Your hand flew to your phone but it was gone. Smashed. Dead.

Currently, you’re limping up the stairs to your apartment. You just want to lie on your bed, blast your music and forget this ever happened.  
Unfortunately for you, that’s not happening.

Your apartment has been broken into.  
The door had been wrenched from its sockets. Smuppets are lying on the floor, ripped to shreds. Broken katanas and other Japanese weaponry are lying broken on the floor.  
You hope to whatever God is up there they didn’t break into your room.

They didn’t.

So you lie down on your bed and try to sleep.  
You succeed, having nameless, cryptic dreams that mean nothing to you.

When you wake up, there’s someone in your room.   
Instinct flaring, you leap forward, brandishing your sword and yelling.  
You don’t realise it, but you’re glowing your signature bright red.

The stranger squeaks in surprise as your sword is against their throat, a few flecks of bright red dribbling down dark skin.

You stop and drop your sword in shock once you realise who it is.

“John!?!?”

 

Your name is John Egbert and you are so sick of your friends getting hurt.  
Because that’s what it was, if you heard the Serket lady correctly. Rose and Jade got ‘converted’, whatever that means. You also think you heard Dave got converted.

After you heard him die, the Serket woman spoke to you over the phone, taunting you about your friends and your dad. About how you were next.

So yesterday, you had enough.  
You took dad’s car and drove all the way from Washington to Texas.  
You’re tired as fuck (you didn’t sleep at all during the trip halfway across the country) and now, you’re stumbling up the stairs to Dave’s apartment.

You don’t even react to the carnage of Dave’s apartment, you just numbly pad towards his room. You know it’s his because it’s free of puppets and other weird paraphernalia.   
And because he’s curled up on his bed, snoring away.

Flash forward to now and Dave’s sword is pressed against your throat and you’re terrified. But you’re also ecstatic. Because Dave is here and he’s ok! Well, except for the glowing clock on his chest but that’s fine.  
Wait what!?!

“Dave…your clock…it’s glowing.” You whisper in shock, waving a hand around its general area.  
“Woah Egbert! So damn eager I see…” Dave shoots you a tired smile and you roll your eyes.  
“Oh yes Dave, your dick is glowing red and making weird ticking noises.”  
“Why yes it does that, thanks for noticing.”  
“Dave…” you whisper, wanting to move closer so badly, but you were kinda weary of the clock fucking fused to his chest. “What the hell is going on? Why is there a glowing clock fused into your chest? Where is Rose and Jade? Who did this to you?” You broke off, and to your utter embarrassment, began crying.  
After a few seconds, you felt Dave wrap his arms around your shaking form, whispering words of comfort.

You had always been short, so when Dave hugged you he literally just wrapped most of his body around yours, tucking your head under his chin.  
But your neck was pressed against his chest.  
Or, more specifically, the cut on your neck is pressed against the glowing clock on Dave’s chest.

The cut hadn’t really hurt in the first place, but something was happening. The wound was closing up. It was as if never happened.

“Dave…? What the fuck is going on?”

Dave didn’t answer, he was too busy having a life-altering revelation.  
He’s completely frozen up and is unresponsive.  
So you do what any good friend would do.

You pry yourself from his grip and gently lay him back down on his bed, tucking him in.

You sit beside his bed-side and fall asleep. You did just travel halfway across the country after all.

 

Your name is Dave Strider and holy fuck you are now a God of Time.

You froze up not because of an existencial crisis, but because Lalonde decided now was a great time to message you in your head and tell you your purpose in life.  
The she promptly told you to find Jade and herself at her house and fucked off out of the connection.  
In New York.

Fucking snarky broads and their tales of fate and destiny. 

You attempt to roll over, but you fail. Your attempts are thwarted by a sleeping nerd who’s clinging to your shirt sleeve as if he is a drowning sailor and your shirt sleeve is the lifeboat that will save his life.

You chuckle to yourself, allowing yourself to stare at him a little longer. Bro is nowhere to be found and you doubt Lalonde really gives a shit. Or she does, and she’s using her newfound God powers to perve on you.  
Maybe.  
You still don’t exactly know what these powers do. Lalonde said she’d explain it in more detail once you got to New York. You’re desperate for answers, but no way are you letting her have the satisfaction of knowing that.

Your attention is brought back to sleeping nerd beside you.  
He looks really tuckered out. Probably because he drove all the way from Washington to get here.  
You need to get to New York now, but the driver is fast asleep.

Seriously, you gave him a playful punch on the arm and he just snored even louder.

He needs his sleep.

So you wrap him in your doona and blankets, pick him up and carry him to the car he oh-so delicately parked across the side-walk. (He’s so lucky there's no one outside, because its night time and would definitely get stolen.)

You guess you’re the driver then.

 

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are waiting.  
You’ve been waiting an awful lot lately. The fates and fortune twirl around the edges of your vision, whispering their secrets into your ears.  
Sometimes, you find it hard to ignore them, and their information makes you kind of crazy.

Drinking helps dull their sound, so you’ve been doing a lot. Whenever Jade catches you, she gets really upset and knocks the bottle out of your hand.

Jade…has been so supportive, despite her own troubles.  
Respecting your wishes to stay in your burnt out home with your mother’s grave. Mum vanished shortly after the fire started. You assumed she died and Jade suggested we hold a funeral for her.  
Mum is ‘buried’ underneath several sprigs of rosemary and a gravestone simply marked with ‘Roxy Lalonde’.  
You tried not to cry.  
You failed.  
Jade teleported away, and you thought she was leaving you, and you cried harder. But she came back later with blankets and flowers and food.   
She bundled you up in the blankets while she cooked food.

Jade has used her teleportation a lot, bringing fresh food, warm blankets and hardware tools and supplies.  
She’s attempting to rebuild my house. She started on my room, then when she finished that, to the rest of the house. She wants to fortify it with blast-shields and hidden rooms. Because it seemed kind of awesome, you let her. You don’t know how she did it (probably with her weird spacey magic), but she did it. All in around two weeks.

As thanks, you made her a comfy outfit that could comfortably house her new ears and tail. You made yourself one, not for ears and tails, obviously, but because your skin is infuriatingly itchy all the time and the cool fabric combats it.  
And because you really, really want to role-play as wizards.

Even though you’re now a powerful Goddess or Seer or whatever, you still just want to have fun.

Currently, you’re roleplaying one such scenario with Jade, her being the great ‘Witch of the Wicked’ and you being the ‘Wizard of Light’ in an underground room. Jade specifically designed this room for your roleplaying adventures. She painted the walls and decorated the room in such a way that makes you feel as if you were actually there.

But even as you play, the fates are whispering at you in their vague voices, counting down.  
You know they’re counting down to John and Dave’s arrival. From there, the four of you will formulate a plan to combat the people who did this to you.

You hope those cultists know what’s coming. Poor things.

 

Your name is John Egbert and you’re awoken by the sound of loud swearing.  
Blearily, you rub your eyes and sit up, only to find you’re already sitting up. And swaddled in blankets. With your glasses off. And in your dad’s car.

“Wha…” you manage to mumble out.  
The swearing stops.  
A fuzzy, blurry pale shape with two black circles on either side turns to you.  
“SHIT! I woke you up.”  
You frown and move your hand towards the fuzzy shape, your hand connecting with soft skin and rubbing against sharp cheekbones. Your hands rests on his cheek for a moment before it is plucked off and your glasses are placing in your empty palm.   
“Nah…it’s cool. What are we doing anyway?” You put your glasses on and your world becomes clear again. Dave shrugs.

“Do you want the long or short version?”  
“Long. I want answers.”  
“Well, I got stabbed and died in and alleyway, am now a God of Time and Lalonde wants to see us. So we’re heading to New York to see her. But there’s a problem-we’re out of gas.”

You lean back on your seat and groan.  
“That’s the long version? That doesn’t answer anything!”  
“Well excuse me princess, but that’s all I got.”   
“Uggggh! That’s so bullshit!”  
He mock gasped, putting his hands to his mouth. “John! That’s naughty language!”  
“Hey! Shut up! I was like, ten when I said that.”  
“Still relevant though.”  
“Uggh I hate you so much right now.”  
“Nah…you love me.”  
“Yeah, I totally do.”

You struggle to hide your blush.  
You’ve always liked Dave, as long as you were ten years old and scrolling through the pages of his webcomic ‘Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff’. Although back then, it was more an admiration crush then anything. Jade had suggested to look for him actually, recommending I talk to him.  
After a few months of kinda stalking him, you muster the courage to message him. He replies instantly, and you strike up an easy conversation. Soon enough, the two of you are best bros.  
You don’t know when you fell in love with him, but you did. You’re so hopelessly in love with him it hurts.

You avert your gaze and change the subject.  
“So um…what are we gonna do about the gas?”

At that he grins. “I have an excellent idea. Maybe I could use my timey powers to fill up the gas tank? Follow me Egbert.”

You open up the car door and meet him outside. He has the hatch to the gas tank open and his shirt off and he’s pressing the clock on his chest to the open hatch.

“Dave what the fuck are you doing?”  
“Shush John, just watch.”

His face shifts into a look of concentration and the clock starts glowing red.  
Really red.  
Way too red.  
Oh god he’s bleeding!

“Dave you idiot!” You shriek and pull him away from the hatch.  
You lay his panting form down onto the grass beside the car.   
Slightly panicky, you rush to the first aid kit you keep in your dad’s old car. You carry it back to Dave, tearing out antiseptic and bandages in a rush to treat him.

“John, I’m fine.  
“No you’re not! You’re fucking bleeding Dave!” You angrily dab the clean washcloth into the bowl of diluted antiseptic and wipe it a little roughly around the edge of the bloody clock. He hisses in pain so you ease up a little.  
As you clean away the blood, you realise just how beautiful the clock is. Well, if the skin around it wasn’t cracked and red raw that is. You hope it doesn’t hurt Dave that much.  
The clock is a mixture of midnight black and a beautifully bright red. Swirling clockwork patterns are inlaid into the back of the clock, behind the crystalline glass. You can’t resist, and drag a finger around the thick black rim.  
Dave gasps in surprise and shock, visible shivers travelling down his spine. You flush in embarrassment and draw your hand away, resuming to clean away the blood.

“Honestly Dave, you shouldn’t fuck around with that thing yet until you know exactly what it does.”  
He nods in reply and as you finish up cleaning the blood on his chest, you realise he’s probably been up for a while.  
“Hey Dave? From what I can tell, it looks like you managed to fill the tank some of the way. I’ll get us to the nearest service station, ok? Then it’s your turn to sleep and my turn to drive us to Rose’s, that good with you?”  
His answer is to snore very loudly at me.

I giggled to myself.  
Gosh Dave was such a nerd.

 

Your name is Jade Harley and they’re finally here.

You’ve been waiting quite a few days for them to arrive after the night Rose sat up in bed, turned to you all glowy-eyed and spooky, uttered the words ‘they are coming’ and promptly falling back to sleep straight after.  
You found out in the morning that meant John and Dave were travelling half-way across the country to see you guys.

You’re so excited! And nervous.

What if they are creeped out by you? What if they get hurt because of you? What if they hate your new look? What if they refuse to even look at you you’re that disgusting? What if-Ding Dong~!

Rose’s doorbell chimes throughout the entire house and snapped you out of your train of thought.  
Rose puts down her book and gets up to go downstairs to open the door.  
Before she exits the room however, she turns to look at you.

“You coming?”  
You shake your head, too nervous to speak.  
Rose’s face softens into a kindly smile. “They won’t hate you Jade. They’re both so worried about you. I bet you ten bucks the first thing John’s going to do when he sees you is hug you, and Dave’s going to make an asshole comment about you ‘finally being an actual furry’ but we’ll all know he’s really worried about you.”  
You look at her, a sceptical look on your face. She just smiles at you knowingly and walks out of the room.  
“You’ll see.” She calls over her shoulder.

You sit there and kind-of-but-not-really sulk whilst you hear overjoyed voices chattering away downstairs.  
You’d love to join them but…

There was a reason you stopped talking to them.

It was because you were terrified of the new power inside of you. Terrified that you would slip up one day, and suddenly *poof*. No more best friends.  
It took Rose quite a bit of convincing to at least get you to talk to her, let alone showing her your dog ears and horribly bald head.  
So yeah, you love your friends, but no.

Nevertheless, you can hear them coming up the stairs. Begrudgingly, you get up and trudge over to the door.  
You open it just as John is reaching for it. You stare awkwardly at each other before a giant grin lights up his entire face and he crash-tackles you into a big hug.   
Dave grins at you and waves.  
“Sup Harley, you’re looking furrier than usual.”

Rose shoots you a knowing glance, eyes full of light and merriment.

Goddamn it, now you owe her ten bucks.


	3. Just Trolling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fleeing troll. Answers. Loads of bullshit.

Your name is Kanaya Maryam and you are fleeing for your life clutching a bundle of surprisingly quiet baby troll.

How about you introduce yourself Kanaya?

Well, since you asked so politely, you will oblige.

Your name is Kanaya Maryam and you are eight and a half swee- No. You’re not.  
Your name is Kanaya Maryam and you are seventeen years old.  
You enjoy fashion, vampire novels and bathing in the sunlight. You are quite unique between your fellow captives in that manner. You used to live in a beautiful sky-tower, but you ran away because you couldn’t handle it anymore.

All the tests to make your blood and skin and eyes change colour. Your…horns. The input of several other romantical ‘quadrants’. The daily torture and containment of your friends and yourself. The routine they forced you to partake in order to make everything ‘perfect’ and ’like it was’  
So you escaped, and you stole something very important to them.

You’ve been on the run for several weeks however, and everything hurts and you’re hungry and so is he. But you keep going, because of what they did, what they were going to do. To a fucking four year old. To their own children.

In his sleep, Karkat grunts a little and you clutch him a little tighter.  
He’s four years old and doesn’t need you to carry him, but a couple of days ago he just collapsed. They were chasing you, you needed to keep going, so you picked him up and ran for it.

You don’t know where the two of you are, you’re too scared to ask the locals.   
You know you look terrifying.  
Long curved horns protrude from your skull. The right ones tip is bent just so.  
Your skin is hard and grey and your eyes are a bright orange with grey slits.

You used to be Chinese, you remember that. You used to have dark hair and jade-green eyes and skin the colour of cream. But that was so long ago, you’ve forgotten what you looked like when you were human. Because you aren’t human anymore.

You were the first to be born, and the first to be converted. Feferi was next, and you sobbed and screamed as they changed her skin and added horns and made her a fish princess under the ocean. Then it was Equius, and they made him too strong for such a gentle soul. But they also made him so violent. They made Nepeta, fused cat paws onto her limbs and gave her a tail. She’s the only one that can calm Equius down.   
Then Eridan, a fish prince for the royal heiress. Then Sollux, and you cried as they forced him to endure migraines and self-loathing. Then they forced Aradia, Tavros, Terezi and Vriska against each other when they were only eight years old. Then Gamzee came along, and they gave him the ‘purest’ blood of all the ‘landwellers’.  
Then finally, the Sufferers wife gave birth and there was Karkat. He was so small and pure, so when they converted him straight away…you saw red.  
But they contained you, and you bid your time, waiting.

Then when it was time, you escaped from your lusus and ran to where Karkat was being held.  
You kidnapped him and ran.

So here you are, clutching a sleepy bundle of Karkat and running for your life.

“Hey! Ma’am, wait!” A loud, nasally voice calls out, voice piercing in the night and your ear.  
You startle and bolt down the nearest alleyway, hoping, praying to whatever is up there that the stranger won’t follow you.  
They do.

You pick up the pace, muscles screaming in process. You stumble your way through the dark streets, the stranger following you at a steady pace behind you. You break into a sprint, almost tripping and falling because of how tired you are.  
The stranger calls out again, but you ignore their voice, pulling the bundle of Karkat closer to your chest. 

All at once, your tired, overworked legs fail you and you collapse.  
The stranger immediately rushes to your side. You tense up as they come closer.

“Are you ok?” They ask, concern evident in their voice. Despite their obvious concerns you cower back for their outstretched hands.  
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you.” The strangers hand retracts to his lap.  
You see now they’re a boy. He looks to be about your own age. He has wild black hair and dark brown skin. Thick black rectangular glasses cover bright blue eyes. He smiles kindly at you, hints of an over-bite poking out of his mouth.

You stare at him warily as he glances down at the bundle in your arms. He licks his lips nervously.  
“Umm…what you got there?” He slowly moved his head to peer into the bundle.   
Immediately you flatten against the back wall and hiss at him, baring your fangs into a snarl.  
He backs away to the opposite wall. He’s far enough from you, so you stop hissing, but you still clutch Karkat to your chest protectively.

Getting the gist, he starts talking about…you don’t know, but he’s talking about whatever comes to mind. You think he’s trying to calm you down, which is surprising. Even more surprising is the fact that it’s working.  
Eventually, you loosen your grip on Karkat (just a little) and begin talking back to him, although it is only short, clipped words.

“Kanaya Maryam.”  
He looks up at you, shocked. “Pardon?”  
“My name is Kanaya Maryam.’”  
The boy’s face split into a wide grin. “Well my name’s John Egbert, it’s nice to meet you miss.”  
You nod. “Likewise.”

You know he can see your horns and grey skin and other un-human like properties. You know he definitely saw your fangs, but he doesn’t seem that phased.  
“If you’ll excuse me, why aren’t you afraid?”  
He frowns. “Afraid? Of what?”  
“Of me.”  
“Oh! Well you see…I am a little nervous, but that’s only because you snarled at me! But you’re just protecting that baby, and you seem very scared at the moment.  
“I know you may think your looks are frightening, but they aren’t. Please remember who is running for presidency right now.”  
Even though they kept you in isolation from the human social media, you can’t help but laugh. You’ve seen his posters everywhere in the outside world.  
They’re terrible.

John grins when you laugh, and you realise that was his intention all along. Inspired, he seems to think now is a good time to make more jokes.

“What do you get when you cross a lemon and a cat?”  
“What do you get?”  
“A sourpuss!”

“What did one rock say to the other?”  
“Nice to meteor you!”   
You repressed a long and exaggerated sigh.

“Hey! I got one too!” A loud, obnoxious voice called out.  
You and John share a look of worry. You know that voice. The owner of that voice used to be one of the ones who guarded you.  
Instinctively, you curl around Karkat, shielding him with your weakening body.  
Another voice (another guard) calls back to the first. “Oh hey, what’s that?”  
“What do you call two trolls and a teenager who is terrible at jokes?”  
“I don’t know, what do you call two trolls and a teenager who is terrible at jokes?”  
“Dead meat!” You can hear the grin in his voice as he says this.

You think, in that moment, that you are screwed. There is only three of you-yourself, who is too weak to battle, Karkat, who is four and John, who is pudgy and short and not very threatening.  
But you underestimate John.  
Because he whips out a comically large hammer out of nowhere and promptly beats the shit out of the two men. Who are wielding swords?  
You’re pretty sure he got hurt during the fight, but when he comes over to you, he seems fine, so you don’t question it.

“Seems like some people are after the two of you.”  
You just nod mutely. He holds out his hand for you to grab.  
“I know a place where you and that little one can be safe. No harm will come to you if we can help it. We can give you food and shelter.”  
You look at him warily, but he smiles in return. It seems genuine, filled with worry and concern. But, something about that smile makes you feel safe, at least for a little while. Your eyes flicker to the unconscious bodies of your pursuers.

You take his hand.

 

Your name is Dave Strider, and you are making the best sandwich in the world.  
It has a lot of things you raided from Rose’s fridge, including other items you (with the help of Jade in promise of a piece) salvaged throughout time and space.  
It contains several kinds of cheese, slices of chicken, pork, beef and lamb, roast pumpkin, several kinds of sauces, tomatoes and other vegetables (all from Jade’s garden which she’s kind of moved to Roses house).  
Jade is sitting on the bench next to the fridge, tail thumping loudly against the wooden surface as she happily chows down on the best sandwich in existence.  
You? You’re just staring at the sandwiches majesty, eyes unable to comprehend such beauty.

You are about to take a huge bite when you hear a loud banging on the door. You try to ignore it but it is so fucking loud.  
You shoot a look at Jade but she just shakes her head. Rose is upstairs meditating or some shit and John went out to get groceries, so once again, it is your job to keep this household stable.

You give out a loud and frustrated groan, exaggerating your movements to garner sympathy from Jade. It doesn’t work.  
You move to the door, swinging it open in an exaggerated movement.

“Ugh! Do you know what time it is? Of course you don’t, that’s my domain. I was just about to eat the best sandwich in existence-“You cut yourself off when you see just who is at the door.

John’s standing there, sheepishly grinning at you. That’s not the surprising part, John’s always heading outside at night, despite Roses, Jades and your own warnings. The surprising part is who he’s with.  
A tall slender woman is clutching a bundle of rags, clothes torn to shreds. Large patches of her clothes are stained with a jade-green substance that you assume to be blood. Long, curved orange horns are protruding from her skull. You can see faint scars along the base, orange meeting grey. Her skin is a dark grey and it looks tough, like the metal of the blast shields that protect Rose’s house. Her lips are a dark black, just like Roses. But, unlike Roses, you can tell hers are naturally black. Her hair is short and black, and if she wasn’t in this sorry state, you’d say that she is normally quite refined, elegant and practical.

You take one look at them, then turn a little to the side, calling up to the second story of the house.

“Rose! We’ve got a problem!”

 

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you were really hoping to spend the evening peacefully meditating.  
Apparently not.

Because John thought it would be a great idea to bring home an injured alien and her child. This heavily interrupts your plans for the evening.  
But you don’t mind. Because you know, after a few months of nothing, you’ll finally have answers.

Right now, Jade and you are treating Kanaya while John and Dave distract Karkat.

It took the four of you to convince Kanaya to let go of Karkat, and even then it wasn’t until after Karkat woke up that she finally let go completely.   
You can hear Karkat’s loud voice yelling about something or other. You chuckle to yourself.  
Between helping a severely hurt person and baby-sitting a screaming toddler, you reckon John and Dave got the worse end of the job.

Kanaya’s very polite and courteous, accepting your help without much complaint. You aren’t used to working with her anatomy, but you think you are doing quite well in sewing up her wounds whilst Jade cleans up the blood.  
Her main injuries are more fatigue and hunger then external. So after you patched her up, you gave her Dave’s sandwich (who’s probably off crying about it on John) and set her up in one of the underground rooms.

As you leave her to rest, you can’t help but feel excited. You think that finally, after months of waiting, you might get some answers.

 

Your name is Karkat Vantas, and these two idiots are being stupid and you want Kanaya.  
No matter how loud you scream this, they don’t listen.

The Fat Nerd (you refused to learn their names) keeps smiling at you and saying everything is going to be alright while the Hipster Asshole calls you a piece of shit.  
Then The Fat Nerd gets upset at him for ‘swearing at a toddler’ and they have big pouty arguments and poke their tongues out at each other.   
It’s sickening to watch.  
You hate them both.

Um…Karkat, how about instead of complaining about people who are trying to help, you introduce yourself?

Ugh fine, maybe it’ll distract you from these imbeciles in front of you.

Your name is Karkat Vantas and you are two sweeps old. Kanaya says that means you are four years old, whatever that means. You enjoy watching the movies they gave you-mainly romance movies-which depicted the rich culture and romance of your kind. Even though you are young, you love practising with your sickles alone in your room.  
You used to live in what those people called a ‘hive’ with your ‘lusus’ and the various guards around your lawnring. Then, two months ago, Kanaya burst into your hive brandishing a chainsaw and told you to come with her.

So of course you came with her.   
She was terrifying.

“Both of you should shut the fuck up.” You snap, interrupting their friendly wrestle. The hipster douche starts laughing whilst the fat one splutters in surprise.  
“Little kids shouldn’t swear!”  
“Hey! Fuck you, you blithering fuckmunch! I am not a ‘little kid’. I am a fully mature adult troll, for your information!”   
Hipster douche snorts, earning him a glare from the fat one.  
“Yeah, you look so mature and adult.”  
“Shut the fuck up you hipster wannabe douchebag.”  
You grin to yourself as hipster douche pushes the fat one off him and glares at you.  
“The fuck did you just say to me you little bitch?”  
“I said that you’re a Stupid. Hipster. Wannabe. Asshole. Douchebag.” I squared up to him, baring my teeth. He was not afraid to stand up to a four year old.   
“Say that to my face you little pipsqueak motherfucker”

“Dave!” The Fat Nerd squeaked in annoyance as Hipster Douche stepped forward, wrapping his chubby little arms around Hipster Douche’s waist. “He’s four years old.”  
Hipster Douche turned to The Fat Nerd.  
“But Joooohn~”  
The Fat Nerd’s arms travelled up Hipster Douches chest, coming to a rest on a circular lump on Hipster Douches chest.  
“Dave don’t fight a four year old.”  
Hipster Douche settled back down, this time on The Fat Nerd’s lap, shooting you dirties.   
“You’re lucky he’s here you piece of shit.”  
You just poke your tongue out at him.

The other two people that live here (you dubbed them Gothy Glowy-Eyes and Dog-Ears) walked into the room. Without Kanaya.

You let out an angry scream and leap from the couch towards the two girls, ready to claw out the closest one’s eyes. Unfortunately for you, Dog-Ears has some weird kind of spacey magic telekinesis, and you’re floating in mid-air, surrounded in a crackling aura.

“Let me the fuck go you pieces of shit! What’d you do to her! Where is she?!?!!” You snarl, waving your fists about in threatening (you hope) way.   
Gothy Glowy-Eyes turns to you, dark-lips turned in a grimace.  
“You mean your friend who came with you? She’s not here right now.”

You shriek in anger. She’s not here right now? Does that mean Kanaya is…dead?  
“You killed her! You sonnabitch whoreface!”

“Oh yes, she’s totally dead. Dead as a doornail.”

You begin screaming, very loudly, and waving and kicking your fists about. Everyone winces. Dog-Ears growls and clutches her ears, dropping you in the process.  
You fall to the ground with a loud ‘thump’.   
You’re free, but you don’t move.  
You just sit there and scream whilst tears stream down your cheeks and you wave your tiny little fists about.

“Rose! Look, you’ve scared him. I don’t think he understands sarcasm!”  
“Oh I scared him. Right.” Gothy Glowy-Eyes tone is scathing and cynical and you scream louder.  
You see The Fat Nerd crouching next to you in your peripheral vision, he reaches his hand out.

You bite it.

He yells in surprise and retracts it. Hipster Douche hurries over to grab The Fat Nerd’s bleeding hand.   
You’re kinda getting a kind of red vibe between the two of them, especially when the Hipster Douche takes The Fat Nerd out of the room.

Dog-Ears sighs and sits next to you.   
“Your um…mum? Sister? Isn’t dead, Rose is just being a sarcastic asshole.”  
You refuse to answer.  
“She does that a lot actually, you’ll get used to it.”  
You consider sticking up the middle finger at her. You have very bad impulse control, so you do it.  
The next thing you know, Dog-Ears is growling obscenities at you while Gothy Glowy-Eyes is struggling to stop her blasting you with her magic.

Hours later, the four of them eat a mouth-wateringly large piece of pizza in front of you while watching a shitty movie The Fat Nerd picked.

They ignore your screaming and complaints and watch the movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The trolls are here :)  
> And oooh boy are you going to hate what's happened to the.  
> <3


	4. Backstory and Bullshit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a reasonably small chapter with badly written plot lol.  
> Plus a smol precious angelfish is introduced.

Your name is Kanaya Maryam and gogdamnit your kind-of-but-not-really son/little brother is such a piece of shit.

Jade apologised for hanging Karkat up with her telekinesis, but you said you didn’t mind. Because when you looked down at Karkat’s sleeping form on your lap, you realised how effective that method was.  
Twelve hours was a record in shortest Karkat tantrums.

Currently, you’re sitting at the kitchen table with the four people who took you in.  
Jade is sitting on the kitchen bench, legs swinging and tail thumping excitedly as she chowed into breakfast. Dave was stretched across two chairs, legs resting on John’s lap. John, in turn, was resting his breakfast plate on Dave’s legs, batting away Dave’s eager hands.  
Rose was sitting directly across from you, picking at her pancakes. For some reason, she reminded you of someone you were forced to troll.

“So, Kanaya.” Rose speaks up, finishing a bite of pancake.  
“Yes Rose?” You haven’t touched your food, and you can see Dave eyeing it beneath his shades.  
“I think all of us are wondering…what happened to the two of you?”

You take a deep breath. You knew they’d ask you eventually. 

“Well, it’s kind of a long story.” You smile dryly at them.  
“We have plenty of time.” Rose replies, gesturing towards Dave.

You laugh a little at that, despite not getting the joke. 

“Well, for me, it started seventeen years ago, but it has been going on long, long before that.” You begin.  
“Once upon a time-“  
“Haha! Once upon a time! Look John! Kanaya is a Disney princess!” You are immediately interrupted by Dave, who’s eagerly elbowing John. Before anyone else can say anything, John hisses at him to shut up.  
Surprisingly, he does.

You cough and start again.

“Well um…anyway…  
“Around forty or so years ago, a man was born.  
(You ignore Dave’s awed whisper of ‘Just like Jesus’)  
As that man grew up, he saw horrible visions of what he believed to be the past, present and future-all at once. Those visions terrified him, plaguing his dreams.  
In those nightmares, he saw aliens and meteors and Gods, and the hope for a new universe.  
Even as a child, the man had been…troubled. He believed the world was terrible, and needed to be fixed.  
He saw the visions, and went crazy.

He began calling himself ‘the Sufferer’ and going around preaching with his friends, the ones who were most loyal to him. He called them ‘the Dolorosa’, ‘the Disciple’ and ‘the Psiioniic’.  
They accumulated quite the following.  
They began…changing themselves into what they were Before.   
Like what they did to me.  
(You gesture towards your horns, skin, bandages and eyes.)  
But you see, the Sufferer was in a rut. He kept saying the things he saw in his visions, but nothing had come true.  
There were no meteors raining towards the earth, signally=ing the end times. There were no trolls. There were no godly humans,  
There was just a bunch of horrific troll-humans who regretted their choice to join this horrible cult.

And then?  
I was born.

They said I was one of the chosen ones, and I, along with many others, would create a new world.

So they performed the operation, although a slight variation-only my blood colour was changed. I was fully changed when I was seven years old.  
They placed me in my hive, to be guarded by my lusus and brought up on the ways of the trolls.

The next year, their heiress Feferi was born. They gave her fins and gills and fuchsia coloured blood almost immediately.   
The year after that, Equius was born. He was such a gentle child-until they gave him super strength and a sense of snobbish superiority.   
Two years later, Nepeta was born. In the Before, they were moirails, so of course they had to be moirails here too. To this day, she is the only one who can calm him, and he is the only one who knows about her super secret shipping wall.  
The next year, two chosen ones arrived-Eridan, the violet blooded sea prince and Sollux, the gold blooded computer hacker.  
Then, there was three years and nothing.   
When I was seven, they began to ‘convert us fully’.  
We were given horns, grey skin and…basically what you see before you.  
The year after that, the cult of the Sufferer was blessed with four chosen ones at once.  
Aradia, Tavros, Terezi and Vriska were all given blood of Burgundy, Bronze, Teal and Cobalt respectively.  
When they were eight years old, they were all pit against each other. Vriska paralysed Tavros. Aradia sent the souls of the dead after Vriska. Vriska killed Aradia. Terezi cut off Vriskas left arm and blinded her in one eye. Vriska blinded Terezi in both eyes. That was last year.  
(‘Oh joy’ you hear John mutter quietly to Dave. ‘What a bunch of pyschopaths’)  
After the four of them were born, it took two years for Gamzee to come out. They drugged him up with a special kind of pie and gave him Purple blood-the highest, and most dangerous of all the land dwellers.  
And well, three years later…  
(You hold up the sleeping Karkat for emphasis)

All twelve of us were given Trollian and told to troll these four humans, just like in the Befo-“

Your summary of your lifes events and the cult that ruined it is interrupted by four shocked gasps of different tones.  
Jades was one of distress. Daves was one of disbelief. Johns was one of concern and Roses one of a pleasant surprise.

“T-troll these four humans?” Jade squeaks out after a few minutes of dead silence.   
“Um…yes?” As you say that, you look around you and see something you didn’t notice before.  
Although you never saw the faces of the humans you trolled over the years, something about these four reminds you of them.   
Then it clicks.

“You!” You gasp in surprise. “You four were the humans!” You point your finger at Dave “You’re turntechGodhead-“You point to John “-ghostyTrickster. Then you changed it to ectoBioligist.” You point at Jade “gardenGnostic”. Finally, you point at Rose. “tentacleTherapist.”

You look at them a bit awkwardly.  
You never really spoke to Jade, John and Dave, but you did speak to Rose.  
What started as a snark-off between two smart-asses grew into a strange friendship. You blush a little under her amused gaze.

“Ahhhh! You were one of the ones who made my life a living hellhole!” Jade shrieks in anger and leaps towards you, slamming her fists on the table.   
“You guys were the worst! You did nothing but torment me! You made me feel like shit! I can’t believe this!” Jade threw her hands in the air and you could tell she was struggling not to cry.  
“You all were terrible, especially that grouchy grump with the grey text!”

You pursed your lips and held up Karkat again, placing his sleeping form on the table. “You are…probably talking about Karkat…”

Realising that she had just been bullied by a four year old for around three years straight, Jade let out a scream of frustration and stormed out of the room.  
John grinned apologetically, giving his breakfast plate to Dave, shoving Dave’s legs off his lap and hurrying after Jade.

“I’m assuming you were grimAuxiliatrix?” Roses voice brings your eyes from Johns retreating back to the table.  
“Oh! Um…indeed I am.” You smile at her sheepishly.  
She chuckles back, a faint blush arising on her cheeks. 

Dave coughs, muttering something that you don’t catch and texting under the table. You hear a faint, corresponding ding echoing around the house. A flurry of dings go back and forth after that.

“So um…you said there were more? What happened to them? Where are they?” Rose asks in a rush, slightly regaining her composure.  
“Oh well…” You pick up Karkat again, clutching him tightly to your chest.  
“It was actually last year, when Aradia and Tavros and Terezi and Vriska were pit against each other. I didn’t want that for any of my friends. So I began to formulate a plan to get them all out.  
Unfortunately, I have no idea where anyone lived. Except Karkat.  
He was the Sufferers son. I guess we’re technically siblings, or cousins or something. The Dolorosa was my ‘mother’, and she raised the Sufferer  
So I travelled halfway across the world, looking for anyone else along the way. All the way from the Tropics to America.   
I was chased, though, and got quite injured, as you can…probably see.” You shoot her a dry smile.

Rose’s eyes shine, both figuratively and literally.  
“Well then, if we are the chosen humans the cultists claim us to be, then they’ve fucked with us too. So I think it’s time to fuck with them.  
I say we all work together, to free your friends.  
Then, we fight them. Let them know that we are not happy. That we do not want this. That we will fight back. That we will not let them get away with this.”

You echo her wide grin, reaching out a long, slender hand across the table.  
“It’s a deal then.”

Rose takes your hand, shaking it.

“It’s a deal.”

 

Your name is Feferi Peixes, and you are finally taking a stand.

It was Kanaya who inspired you to do it.

Well Feferi, before you tell us your genius plan to take a stand, why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Well shore! That sounds like fun!

Your name is Feferi Peixes and you are eight sweeps old. You live underneath the ocean in a gigantic palace with all your guards and your lusus, Gl’bgolyb. You absolutely love animals, especially cuttlefish. You kind of made your underwater sea palace into a resort for injured sea creatures. You absolutely adore making fish puns.  
It is said, one day, you will unite troll and humankind. Because of this, you kind of can’t wait for the reckoning, it’s a chance to start anew, make new friends and be free.  
Well, that’s what you used to think.

A few weeks ago, Kanaya stopped talking to anyone! Which is weird because she’s the oldest and most protective out of all of you. She messages everyone at least once a day to see if they were ok. You heard rumours that she ran away.  
Now, Karkat’s missing. Well, you could be over-reacting, but you don’t think so.  
Because every morning, without fail, you would always message Karkat. And he would always reply to your crafty little fish punned ‘good morning’ within minutes.  
It’s been several hours.

You’ve overheard whispers amongst the palace guards-something about Kanaya escaping, and how they need to escalate things. Of how they need to start the Game.

You’ve noticed more guards lately. You caught a group of them beating up one of your favourite cuttlefish. You were furious, but they refused to listen, ignoring you. After you attacked them with your royal trident, you were locked away from your room.   
You are no longer able to explore your palace or go outside.

So now, you have decided to aid your friends in any way you can.

Which is why you asked your moirail, Eridan to offer up even more sacrifices to Gl’bgolyb than usual.  
You are currently sitting in the middle of your room, legs crossed and palms pressed together. You are getting ready to commune with your lusus.

Bracing yourself, you slap your cheeks and let out a deep sigh. You aren’t really sure if she can help you, but you have to try.

You close your eyes and reach out with your mind.

After a few minutes of nothing, you feel a tendril of…something wrap around your consciousness. You don’t struggle, because you know who that tendril belongs to. 

‘Greetings my child.’ Gl’bgolyb whispers in your mind. Her voice is quiet-it has to be-so you have to strain your senses to hear her.  
“Hi Gl’bgolyb! It’s so nice to talk to you!”  
‘And it is nice to speak to you as well my child’  
You chuckle nervously, considering you are going to ask a huge favour of a gigantic tentacle monster.  
“Ummm, Gl’bgolyb? I have a massive favour to ask of you.”  
‘And what is that, my child?’  
“Swell, you sea…I want you to make a collection of bubbles in which my friends, myself and the four humans can visit in our sleep. We need a safe place to formulate our plan of attack. All my life, my friends and I have been pawns in this mad-mans game. Oh, I’m sorry, Game. He plans to destroy the world mum! We have to stop him.”  
You can feel Gl’bgolyb’s gaze on you and blush a little, clenching your fists.  
‘Of course I will my child. I know what they have done, for like the Sufferer, I too remember. I know what will happen. You must stop it. You all must.  
I will make them’  
You sigh in relief.  
You feel a tendril stroke your consciousness’s cheek.

‘Good luck my child’

You wake up alone in your bedroom. And promptly fall back to sleep.

There’s work to be done.


	5. Is this real life? Is this just fantasy?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Feferi and Jade have a nice chat.

Your name is Jade Harley, and man have your dreams been really weird lately. In a good way.

They’ve been very abstract and weird, and you keep getting flashes of a weird fish-troll-girl. But she’s gone before you can investigate.

You’ve been sleeping a lot lately, mainly to avoid any awkward meetings with Kanaya and/or Karkat. You feel kind of bad about ditching John, Rose and Dave though, especially when you find homemade food (from John), scarves and other knitted monstrosities (from Rose) and some assorted plushies of some kind (from Dave).  
But also because you want to catch a glimpse of that beautiful fish-troll.

Which is probably why you’re asleep now. Well, getting to sleep. 

You’re currently huddled up in blankets and pillows watching a movie with John, Rose and Dave. You’re taking up the whole couch, and Rose is taking up the armchair, knitting a horrific beanie (with two holes it in. No doubt it’s a gift for Kanaya). Because of this, John and Dave are huddled up to each other on the floor. They’re both trying their best to be subtle, but it’s really obvious they like each other.  
Obvious to everyone except themselves.

Anyway, back to sleeping.  
You’re nearly there, to dreamland.  
This movie is so boring, you don’t think they’d mind if you just…took a brief nap. You close your eyes.

Before long, you’ve completely drifted off.

When you open up your eyes, you’re back in the happy little dreamland you find yourself in every time you sleep.

This time, you’re in a gigantic room. The floor, walls and ceiling are all made of swirly fuchsia marble. Above you hangs a huge golden chandelier inlaid with gemstones of various colour. In your peripheral vision, you can see shoals of fish darting between perfectly sculpted marble pillars.   
You sit up, taking in your surroundings.  
Given that there’s currently a cuttlefish sitting in your lap, you’re going to guess you’re in some weird underwater palace. Before you can freak out, a bubbly, happy voice calls out to you.

“Shello! You’re awake! Or asleep. Whatever you prefer.”

You look towards the voice.

The young fish-troll girl is sitting there, smiling at you happily.  
She’s beautiful.  
Thick black hair is floating around her like a halo. Poking out from the waves of hair were two slightly curve orange horns. Her skin was a dark grey, but tinged with a ton of fuchsia freckles on her cheeks, shoulders, ears and every other visible orifice of her body.   
She’s short and chubby, giving her an innocent, childish look. But then your eyes drawn to the golden trident set beside him and you realise she can kick your ass.  
Probably.  
Her ears are long and sharp looking, sticking out in jagged points. You can barely see it through see-through green and blue material, but there are slits on her throat you assume are gills.  
She’s wearing what you assume to be a black and fuchsia one piece swimsuit. The fuchsia forms a sort of weirdly curved ‘H’ that runs all around her swimsuit. Tons of the same see-through blue and green material is wrapped around her body.  
She’s absolutely covered in golden jewellery. A few bangles, necklaces, anklets and a golden tiara make you sure what you’re dealing with here.

A fucking mermaid princess.

Her fuchsia stained lips open up again, to reveal sharp, white fangs.

“You’re one of those trolls.” You can’t help but spit out venomously. She looks amazingly pretty. Like seriously, you don’t think it’s possible for someone to be that pretty. But you aren’t going to be nice to her because of that.

She looks a little taken aback, smile faltering a little.  
“Yes! I am, my name is Feferi Peixes, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”

She holds out her hand for you to shake. You notice sharp yellow nails with darkened fuchsia underneath the nails.  
You stare at it suspiciously. Is this a trick? If you shake it, she might dig her nails in, or attack you or something.

“You sure didn’t act like it on PesterChum.” You glare, ears sticking up and tail fluffed up to make you look tougher.

She blinked in surprise, before chuckling a little. “You…probably talked to Karkat, huh? Grey text, all caps, swears a lot?”  
“Yeah” You scowl, casting your eyes to the ground.  
“Oh, don’t worry about him. He’s so crabby! He’s always like that. Honestly, it’s infuriafin sometimes!”   
“Yeah well it doesn’t help he’s running around our house, causing a shitstorm of bullshittery.”  
Feferi gasps, and jettisons her way over to you, pressing her face against your own.  
“He’s ok? Oh thank gog, I was so worried when I heard he had gone missing! Is Kanaya with him? Is she alright?”

You step back a little, feeling slightly awkward at her closeness.  
“Yeah they’re both fine! But I’d rather not talk about them if that’s ok. Brings up bad memories.”  
Feferi smiles kindly at you, and your heart flutters a little in excitement. “That’s ok! I will check on them next time they fall asleep!”

“Fall asleep…you don’t mean…you made all this!?” You gesture around you in amazement.  
Feferi smiled and blushed fuchsia (so fucking cute). “Shell…no. But my lusus did. Gl’bgolyb. She’s kinda like my mum?”  
“What exactly is it? Where are we?”  
“We’re in what I call the dream bubbles! It’s a place for all my friends to meet in their dreams! Isn’t it fintastic?”  
“Yeah I guess…it is pretty cool…”  
“Shore is!” Feferi laughed and floated away. She began swimming around the room in laps, giggling as she went.

You stared after her for a second, before kicking off the ground and joining her.  
You swim around a little bit, getting used to the feeling of floating around underwater and not having to breathe.  
Then the two of you decided to have a race, zooming around the ballroom, dodging colourful marine life and darting in between pillars.  
Feferi won.

After the race, the two of us settled down side-by-side on a pile of cushions and blankets.

“Umm…sorry I was so hostile to you earlier, you seem really nice.” You look at her sheepishly, shooting her a small smile.  
“It’s ok! I’m sorry for letting them bully all of you for all these years…”  
“Hmmm…”

The two of you sat in silence for a little while, just thinking.

“I have a question.”  
“Shell, what is it?”  
“Out of John, Rose, Dave and myself, why did you choose me to talk to?"  
Feferi giggled and blushed fuchsia. “Shell because…um…you seem so nice! And you’re reelly pretty! Don’t get me wrong, your fronds are pretty cool! But I’ve been reelly nervous to talk to anenomeone! I had to reelly convince myshellf to talk to you. Sorry if I creeped you out or something…”  
You blushed back, hiding behind your hood and layers of thick black hair. It was growing out, which was a relief. Over the six months since your ‘conversion’ it had grown at a steady pace. It was now slightly above shoulder length. 

“So, what do you want us to do here? I mean, it’s great that your lusus made this for you and all, but why exactly?”

She turns to you with a look on her face that is just, so done.  
“Jade. You know as well as I why I did. That cult…they’ve ruined all our lives. They’ve tortured us all our lives. They transformed us all into ‘what we were’. I don’t know about you, but I just wanted a normal life. I didn’t want gills cut into my body, or horns transplanted onto my head. I didn’t want my eyes filled in with orange pigment. I didn’t want my blood changed so I was the princess of a dead race. I don’t want grey skin, I want normal, human skin. Like yours see?” She points to your dark skin with shaking fingers, smiling sadly.  
“My skin used to be all like that. All smooth and dark like chocolate and soft, just like what a child imagines clouds to be like.”  
She scoffs. “Point is, none of us wanted this. Only that stupid glubbin’ cult wanted this. None of us did. So I set this up to communicate and formulate a plan. We’re coming for that stupid cult.   
And we’ll make them pay.”  
In a fit of anger, Feferi flung her trident ahead of her. It lodged into a pillar, a golden fork sticking out of a concrete pylon.

You awkwardly shuffle over to her and wrap your arms around her in a big hug. You hold her shaking, sobbing form for ages, rubbing her back and whispering assurances that everything will turn out okay.  
You hope.

 

Your name is Dave Strider and you are trying to see how many goldfish crackers you can fit on your sleeping best friend before she moves.   
John is sitting beside you, passing you the crackers. You know that job isn’t necessary in proper goldfish cracker conduct, but as your hands brush together every so often, you don’t complain. Rose sits a little way away with a whole bag of crackers to herself. Kanaya and Karkat are god-knows-where.  
It’s a team effort.

You all know Jade is trying to avoid Kanaya and Karkat and after all the troubles the trolls caused, you don’t blame her. But it still hurts. (Not that you’re saying that out loud). 

You manage to fit 413 goldfish crackers before she wakes up.

Jade sits up blearily, rubbing her eyes and putting her circular glasses back in place.  
“What the…why are there goldfish crackers all over me?” Jade squints suspiciously at you.  
You and John proceed to look away, avoiding eye contact and whistling the tune of every guilty person ever.  
She huffs out an amused sigh.  
“Well, that doesn’t matter now, I have something I need to tell you guys! It’s super important! Meet me in the kitchen in ten minutes okay?” With that she hops up, pushing past us and scattering goldfish crackers everywhere.

“What the fuck Harley?” You shout after her as several goldfish crackers hit your face.   
John just laughs and pegs a few at you.   
You peg a few back.  
It escalates into a full-fledged goldfish cracker throwing war.   
There were no survivors.

Fifteen minutes later, John and I arrived in the kitchen covered in crumbs and the scent of victory. Rose trailed in after us, having been caught in the crossfire. Not even her weird glowing eyes could have prepared her for the onslaught.  
Kanaya, Karkat and Jade are already sitting at the table, chatting idly.

When Jade sees you, she pops up, tail wagging excitedly.   
“Great! You’re all here. I can finally tell you what I asked you here for.”

Kanaya looked at us with a sort of pleading look in her eyes. “She refused to tell us anything. She insisted we stay here and wait for the three of you.”  
“Much appreciated.” Rose said dryly, stalking over to Kanaya whilst brushing off goldfish crumbs.

“Don’t get crummy with me missy!” Jade crowed, putting her hands on her hips and grinning.  
“What? That doesn’t make sense Jade-“Rose attempted to say, but was cut off by the shushing finger of Jade.  
“Shhhhh I know what I’m doing.”

Your focus was pulled from the conversation in front of you to the soft, breathy laugh of the boy standing beside you. 

You kind of have this huge, unironic crush on John that’s been going on for quite a while. You’ve had it for so long, you can’t even remember not having a crush on him.   
You loved coming home from a particularly shit day at school to his cheery blue text. You loved how he could always cheer you up, not even knowing he was doing it. Later, when the four of you started skyping each other, you nearly had a breakdown at how fucking cute he was. Luckily, you managed to seem largely unimpressed and still remain cool as heck.  
After that, you slowly fell in love with his little mannerisms; the way little dimples appeared on his cheeks when he smiled, the way he would distractedly take your hand before realising what he’d done and dropping it like it was burning hot (this was a new, and much loved development.), the way his eyes would slide half-shut whenever he was contented. You could literally go on forever. (And you would, but you figure now is not the time, because everyone is staring at you).

John coughs to grab your attention. “Earth to Dave? Jade kinda has something to tell us yet refusing until we’re ‘all here’.”   
You glance over at the table. Kanaya and Rose were chatting about who-knows-what (except them). Jade was staring up at the ceiling, tapping her foot impatiently. Karkat was sitting on the high-chair you made him, hands curled up into fists and face bright red, eyes screwed up and cheeks puffed out.

You sling your arm over John’s shoulders and pull him closer.  
“Looking good there Karkles, real constipated look you got there.”

Karkat’s face goes even redder. “Shut the fuck up you insufferable dickmunch!”  
“Awww look, Karkles is going as red as a fucking tomato! How adorable!”  
“Don’t call me adorable you piece of shit! Your fucking flush crush is even redder than I am!” He laughs triumphantly, as if he just roasted you big time, instead of just drawing your attenyions to the boy beside you.  
John is refusing to meet your gaze and blushing darkly. You can’t help but notice at the way his cheeks puff out and his eyes sshine with embarrassment.  
“Hell yeah, shit’s adorable, unlike you.”  
Karkat opens his mouth to retort, but is stopped by Rose butting in.

“So Jade, why did you summon us here?”  
Jade, who was taking what you assume to be a powernap, snapped to attention.  
“Right yes. So I had this dream and-“  
“Oh great. Harley has lost it. She’s gonna tell us all about what bullshit she’s been up to. Zooming around on another planet or some shit.” Karkat interrupted, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation.  
“Karkat, shut up.” Kanaya elbowed him with her unusually sharp elbows.

Jade tried again. “Well, yes, kind of like that. But there was a really cute mermaid princess named Fefe-“  
You can’t help yourself, you interrupt her.  
“Really cute mermaid princess? Please don’t tell us about your wet dreams. Jeez Jade, I’m not judging, but you have some weird kinks.”  
John steps on your toe, but Jade just stares you dead in the eye and says;  
“Yes, because we all know exactly who you have wet dreams about every night.”  
That motherfucker, fucking knows. Goddamnit, you don’t know how she does, but you draw John closer to you anyway. Confused, he pats your back in soothing circles.

“Anyway, so, back to what I was saying. In my dreams, I met this mermaid-troll girl named Feferi Peixes. She told me she and her lusus set up the dream-bubbles. A series of bubbles that collect our memories to create safe places for our dream-selves. She says it’s a great way to convey information between each other!”

“Feferi set up all that?” Kanaya interrupted, seemingly unable to keep the proud smile off her face.  
“Yep! She shore did! She even offered me a tour! But then I woke up…”  
“It’s nice to see she’s ok…” Kanaya murmured to herself. Karkat seemed a little relieved, but not by much.

“Anyway…” Jade dug around in her pyjama pockets, looking for something. After a few seconds of foraging in her pockets like a raccoon foraging through your garbage can late at night, she pulled out a slip of slightly soggy paper. With a grin, she slammed it down on the table.   
“She gave me this!”  
“And what is that Jade?” Rose inquired, giving the soggy piece of paper a wary look.  
“Coordinates to a certain troll pirate fish-prince that Feferi says we need to rescue-and fast.”  
“Troll pirate fish prince…? Do you perhaps mean Eridan?” Kanaya asks, a thoughtful look on her face.   
“Hmmm yeah, I think so! Feferi said he was in big trouble, that they were going to speed things up. She says they might kill him.”  
“That may make sense. I can see great tribulations in our future. Plus, it would be highly beneficial if we rescued all of the trolls. If we can save them all, then we would be successfully hijacking their plans.” Rose says, eyes shining particularly bright. The ‘lights of prophecy’ was what Jade affectionately dubbed them.

I nudged John. “Trolls. Gotta catch em all” I hissed into his ear.   
He barely managed to conceal his giggles behind the palm of his hands.   
“Guys guys, we gotta be careful-we have to do our very best.” John grinned, spreading out his fingers.  
“Like no one ever has.”  
“To catch em all is our real test.”  
“To train them is our cause~”

Kanaya flushed a dark green. “We are not Pokémon.”  
John had decided to show Kanaya and Karkat just what they had missed from human culture. Karkat had decided to educate John on the fineries of troll culture.  
Their so called ‘culture sessions’ often ending with a lot of screaming, exasperated sighs and general confusion all round.  
But, John did manage to teach them about a few things. Like the shitty movies he deemed classics, anime, Harry Potter (Rose helped with that explanation) and Pokémon.

Back to the present, John and you are giggling like idiots and whispering Pokémon related puns to each other whilst Kanaya, Rose and Jade make an actual plan.  
You really hope it doesn’t completely fuck up.


	6. Rescuing the Troll Pirate Fish Prince

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanaya, John and Dave go to rescue Eridan.

Your name is John Egbert, and boy are you fucking nervous right now.

Because you and your best friend Dave Strider are sitting in your hotel room smearing grey face paint on each other.  
It’s for your plan.

Kanaya, Dave and yourself will sneak into Eridans hive and escort him to safety. Kanaya will be posing as the Dolorosa, with a costume designed by both Rose and herself. Dave and I would be accompanying her, posed as two blue-blooded trolls. Rose, Jade and Karkat would be staying in the hotel room, each assigned to their own task.   
Jade would be sleeping to get more information from Feferi and possibly any other trolls she meets in the dream bubbles.  
Rose would be using her ‘lights of prophecy’ to guide us on the safest path.  
Karkat would be staying out of our way.

We were honestly pretty lucky to get this room. I managed to convince the receptionist that we were cosplayers attending a con. They looked at us like we were trash, but after I explained a ginormous story to him that I made up on the spot, they seemed less disgusted.  
Kanaya told me it wasn’t ‘just a story’ like I told the receptionist.  
The events I described were exactly like the ones the Sufferer told everyone.   
It terrified me a little I guess, but as I reached out my hand and tangled my fingers with Dave’s, I felt a little better.

Speaking of Dave, he’s being very gentle as he glides his thumb against your non-existent cheekbone.   
The two of you will be dressed in robes-ones typical of blue-blooded guards that Kanaya said the always wear. You don’t need to cover your entire bodies in grey paint-just enough so that your arms, legs and faces are covered.   
Jade made the two of you troll horns with foam and orange paint.  
You look pretty sucky, but Karkat says that everyone who had the operation looked sucky, so you’ll pass.

Both of your arms and legs are completely painted grey and Dave insisted on doing your face. You agreed, but as long as you could do his face.  
To your surprise (and happiness) he agreed.

“Hee hee hee! Dave, that tickles!” You giggle at him, resisting the urge to bat away his hand.  
“Don’t worry babe, if you relax, it won’t tickle as much.” Came the quick, sarcastic response.  
“Oooh but it tickles so much~!” You reply, deciding to continue the weird fake-flirting.  
“Like I said, relax, and it won’t tickle as much.” He murmured, dipping his fingers back into the paint pot and gliding his thumb against my cheek.  
“It’s cold too.” You mutter under your breath.  
“Hmmm well so is my reptilian dick.”  
“Ew Dave that’s gross.” You close your right eye as his thumb smears the face paint all over it. He took off your glasses to paint the entirety of your face. They were lying on the bedside table. Or at least you think they are.  
You can’t see shit without your glasses.  
“Wow John, way to be judgey and fucking diss my poor, reptilian body.”  
“Well I’m very sorry for hurting your reptilian feelings.”  
He pokes your forehead, creating a sticky lump of face paint.  
“Babe, I thought we had something. I thought you’d love me whether or not my body had scales.”

Sensing a little bit of truth hidden inside his words, I reached out to touch his cheek.  
“Nah, your weird lizard body is great! It’s really cool, just like you. I know I often joke around that you’re not, but secretly? I think you’re pretty cool.  
You shouldn’t hate this” You murmur, dragging your fingers down to his chest. "This is part of you, and you shouldn’t hate it. You’re my best friend, and if you think I’d stop being your best friend because of it, then too bad. Because I’m staying.”  
You finish off your rant, awkwardly drawing your hand away from his chest.  
He snorts. “Jeez Egbert, you are bad at being subtle.”  
You blush in response and murmur a quick ‘sorry’ that you don’t think he caught.

He finishes the rest of your face in relative silence. Once it’s complete, he hands you the pot of paint.  
“Here you go John, time for you to smear your goo all over my face. Don’t get too hard.”  
You pout at him and scoop up a glob of paint, smooshing it against his cheek.

“Ouch! Be gentle John, for I am still but a blushing maiden and you are being very rough with that paint.”  
“Just relax sweetie poo~” You mimic his tone from earlier, adding extra sarcasm. “It won’t hurt if you just relax.”  
“It won’t hurt if you didn’t fucking jab me in the eye.”  
“I haven’t even gone near your shades! How have I jabbed you in the eye?”  
“With your words John. With your cold, insensitive words that hurt my eye and my hea-OW!!” Dave yelped out as you jab his cheek again.  
“Hee hee! Shush Dave! I need to concentrate! We don’t want you being found out now, do we?”  
“Well excuuuuuuuuse me princess! My voice is beautiful! How dare you-mmphh!”   
“Shush Dave!” You whisper, putting your hand to his lips.  
He brought his hand up to remove my hand. With a cocky smirk on his face, he curled his fingers around mine and edged a little closer.  
“Make me” He hissed back, pushing his face into mine.  
Your faces were so close, you could feel his breath against your lips. You can almost feel the sexual tension in the air. You could probably cut it with a really sharp dildo or some other sexual device. That’s how it works, right?  
Because of the vast amount of rom-coms you’ve had to watch while baby-sitting Karkat, you know what to do.  
“Oh I think I will…” In one quick motion, you moved forward and placed your lips on his.

You had never kissed anyone before. You were a major nerd/weirdo at school and no one even talked to you, let alone tried to kiss you.  
So of course you have no idea how to kiss. So you just kinda…pressed your lips to his as sweetly as you could.   
And, judging by his reaction of silent laughter, you assume it wasn’t very good.

Struggling not to cry, you push him away.  
“S-sorry! Won’t happen again, I promise! I’ll just finish up your disguise and I’ll never talk about what just happened again! I promise.” You manage to squeak out.  
Luckily for you, kissing Dave actually shut him up for once.   
You managed to work quite fast without Dave’s interference. (But it was boring without your flirtatious banter).  
Until it was time to do his eyes.

“Dave, come on. Take them off.”  
Dave pouts (fucking pouts. What is he, six?) and shakes his head.   
“Dave.” You sigh, reaching out once again for his shades. Once again, he flinches away from your hand.  
“Dave!” You snap. “Listen, if this is fear over me seeing your eye colour, or emotions or whatever, snap out of it! I know what colour your eyes are. They’re a very pretty red, just like the sun when it sets over the dusty horizon of an apocalyptic wasteland. And we all know you hide your emotions under your shades! Besides, after being your best friend for six years, I’ve learnt to read you pretty easily.  
Now take them off!”  
He smirks, but you can tell he’s nervous. “’just like the sun when it sets over the dusty horizon of an apocalyptic wasteland’? Jeez Egbert, so poetic.”  
You glare at him and he holds up his hands in surrender.  
“J-jeez Egbert, ok ok. But…don’t say I didn’t warn ya”

(Stuttering? Dave was too cool to ever stutter. What was the big deal? It’s just his eyes.)  
With trembling (trembling? Dave never trembled either. Something was wrong.) fingers, he pulled off his shades.

To reveal never ending, twisting, turning tunnels of tick-tocking clockwork. With each passing second, the clockwork ticked on. It was like Dave was helping time. Sheltering it under his pale skin and protecting it. You don’t know how someone can protect Time, but you believe if anyone can, it’s Dave.  
It’s as if Time is a king, and Dave is its Knight.  
Those eyes…are so mesmerising. And beautiful. Not just because they’re Dave’s and you love absolutely everything about him. But because you can’t look away. Can’t stop staring.  
You literally can’t stop staring. Your eyes are drawn to his and you can’t pull them away.   
Without your glasses, everything is very blurry. But, looking into Dave’s eyes, you can see the fine details of every inch of his irises.   
You can’t speak, can’t move. You’re terrified and paralysed and helpless.

Suddenly, you are released from the spell his eyes have over you by a circular piece of dark glass.  
You snap out of it, closing your eyes and shaking your head in confusion.  
Dave snatches the pot of paint from your lap and backs away.  
“I-I can finish this myself…”  
With a swish of his troll-robes, he leaves the room.

All you can do is wipe the drool from your chin (when did that get there? It must’ve happened when you zoned out, how embarrassing) and stare after him in mute disbelief.

 

Your name is Kanaya Maryam, and it is very hard to pose as the Dolorosa flanked by two blue blood guards when one guard is humming the ‘Mission Impossible’ theme.  
The three of you are already deep into Eridan’s hive. There are a surprising amount of guards. Luckily, your disguise is holding out and, whenever you pass one, they bow to you. You are posing as their leaders mother after all.  
Eridans hive is an old, sunken pirate ship located on an isolated, rocky outcrop somewhere around the equator. Unfortunately, Jade couldn’t teleport the three of you any closer to the hive because she’s never seen it before. Her weird doggy space magic doesn’t appear to work when she doesn’t know what it looks like. Kind of a ‘don’t know can’t go’ kind of thing.  
But that’s fine. You took a speedboat.

“John!” You hiss, shooting an annoyed stare at the ‘blue blood’ on your right. “If those guards hear us, they’ll figure it out!”  
“Sorry! It just makes seem breaking and entering into a sunken pirate ship even more exciting, you know! I mean it is exciting, but—“  
You frown at him, putting a finger to your lips.  
“Right! Sorry! Blue blood guard means no talking, right-o”

You smile to yourself. Despite their non-blue blood behaviour (well, John has. Dave has been dead silent since this morning, when we got our disguises ready.) The two of them can pass as trolls.  
Dave is naturally tall and skinny, with visible muscle on his body. He doesn’t even need the giant sword strapped to his back to fit right in with the muscular blue-blooded guards.  
John however, is naturally short and quite pudgy. A scattering of blue freckles has been painted onto his cheeks. His face is twisted into one of determination and over-exaggerated sternness. You know for sure that if it weren’t for the ginormous hammer slung over his shoulders, he would be dead. Even with it, you still see several blue-bloods give him a second glance as you pass.

You turn yet another corner. Up ahead, you can see golden, ornate doors guarded by two blue-bloods. It’s quite the comparison between the broken down ships interior and the intricate door.

Gathering your wits and hoping this works, you stride over to the guards.  
“I need to see the Prince of Hope.” You tell the guards.  
You’ve heard the Dolorosa call Eridan this whenever he is brought up. All twelve of you are called similar titles, yours being the ‘Sylph of Space’. The Sufferer claims this is what is called a ‘god tier title’ and we were all given one in a previous life.

The guards say nothing, only opening the door to let the three of you inside.

As soon as you were inside the massive bedroom, you wasted no time.   
You hurried past old war tomes, discarded wands and lavish furniture. The room was empty of people from what you could see.  
Of course there was yourself, frantically searching for any sign of the Violet-blooded troll. There was John, who was spinning around in awe, trying to get every last detail of Eridans etched into his brain. There was Dave, who was staring at John with a small smile across his black painted lips.   
But no Eridan.

“Eridan!” You hiss quietly, opening a treasure chest filled with coins and precious gems. “Where are you?”  
You hear a splashing sound come from behind you. You whip around, towards the slowly emerging head from Eridan’s bed.

“K-Kan…? Is that you?” It whispers, in Eridan’s signature accent.  
With a gasp of relief, you rush over and pick him up from the sopor slime and embrace him in a motherly hug.  
“Yes my dear, it’s me. We’re going to get you out of here.”  
“B-But! Why are you here? What’s going on! Fef didn’t warn me about this!” He struggles a little against your hold, but your motherly grip is too much for him. He settles into it.  
“You’ve been in contact with Feferi?”  
“She was the one to tell me to hide, because they would take me and kill me.”  
Your grip tightens. “We will not let that happen.”

You set him down.  
“Eridan, grab some important personal belongings. We’re getting you out of here.”  
He nods with wide orange eyes and rushes around his room, gathering the bare necessities.  
Ahab’s Crosshairs, extra scarves, a spare cape, a few war manuals and—okay, that’s enough.

“Eridan, let’s go.” You whisper over to him. He’s about to respond—probably a complaint of some kind when he’s interrupted by the doors flying open.

“You’re not going anywhere daughter dearest!”  
The Dolorosa stood in the doorway, flanked by two blue blooded guards.  
You stiffen in fear and your first instinct is to grab Eridan and run, making sure John and Dave are following close behind you. But you can’t, because the Dolorosa is blocking the doorway.   
“You’re no mother of mine.” You snarl, baring your fangs. You reach your hand out to Eridan, wiggling your fingers in what you hope tells him to get his ass over to you.   
“You can’t deny genetics.” As the Dolorosa says this, Eridan slowly makes his way over to you, clutching Ahab’s Crosshairs tightly.  
“But that’s what you’re doing. Denying our genetics. I was born a human. Everyone here was born human, except you listened to the ravings of a madman and allowed him to do…THIS” You shout, waving your arms around.  
“It is for the good of this world.”  
“What, did he tell you that? He’s full of lies.” You feel a small, preteen hand grip your own. You squeeze it reassuringly.  
Subtly, you shoot a nod at John and Dave, conveying your intentions. They nod back, steely determination in their posture.

All at once, the four of you surge forward. John and Dave brandished their weapons and charged forward, working together to knock out the blue bloods beside the Dolorosa. You rush forward, dragging Eridan alongside you.  
You bolted towards the Dolorosa and jumped, kicking her out of the way with your high-heeled boot. You take great pleasure in seeing a trickle of jade coloured blood run down her cheeks.

“GET THEM!” You hear her shriek at your retreating backs.

You don’t listen to her, relying on John and Dave to beat away the approaching blue-bloods.  
The hallways of Eridan’s hive are so much longer and twisted and complicated then you remember. You’re leading everyone outside, so you have to be on your toes. You make sure everyone is following you every few seconds of racing down the old, wooden corridors.  
A few guards are hot on your trail, but you keep going. You have your specialty lipstick tube clutched in your hand in case anything goes wrong.

But, as you turn the next corner, you have to skid to a halt. Because there’s a dead end up ahead.  
Desperately, you turn around to face them. Your grip tightens on Eridans hand, and you can see John and Dave tightening a grip on their weapons as well.  
You will fight your way out of this situation…or die.

But Eridan has other ideas.  
As John and Dave leap to tackle the guards, Eridan lets go of your hand and fires Ahab’s Crosshairs at the wall beside you.  
It explodes, sending flaming shrapnel everywhere and filling the dark corridor with sunlight.

“This way!” He shouts and grabs your hand, dragging you outside.  
You can hear the clashes of metal on metal and the smash noises accompanied by John’s hammer.  
Slowly, the two of them are being pushed back.  
Eridan stops at the helm of the ship, because there’s nowhere else to go. Metres below you is the wide expansive sea. Eridan may be able to swim, but you can’t. Your speedboat is nowhere in sight.  
You’re trapped.

“That’s far enough darling.”   
The Dolorosa’s voice calls out to you. You can see the vast ocean below you, you can hear the tired panting of your friends, and you can smell the salty ocean wind. There is no way you’re going down without a fight.   
You spin around, ready to leap at the Dolorosa and cut her head off with your chainsaw, but you don’t. The trembling hand on your shoulder prevents you.

You bristle, and turn to look.

It’s Dave. He’s touching your shoulder, a pleading look on his face.  
His chest is glowing red. That’s the first thing you notice. As the light fades, you begin to notice other things.  
Like how he is drenched in jade, violet and red blood. Something tells you that’s your blood on his clothing.  
Like how his cheeks are glistening with tears.  
Like how, on his back, are two shining crows’ wings. They are radiant, black things that gleam in the sunlight. 

“Don’t. Fighting ends in tragedy.” His voice is hoarse, broken. Like he’s going to cry at any moment.  
“What can we do but fight? I will not surrender to these beasts.” You spit out, glowering at him.  
He simply smirks at you, raising his new wings. “We fly”

With that, he grabs the three of you-John under his left armpit, Eridan is wrapped around his back, looking a little like a humantroll jetpack and yourself with his right arm wrapped around your torso-and flaps his ginormous wings, sending the four of you hurtling into the sky.  
You all whoop and yell with joy and exhilaration as you take off into the sky, leaving the smirking Dolorosa and her stunned blue blooded guards standing far, far below you.

Eridan is safe.  
Three down, nine to rescue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so next week is my Half-Yearlys. They're an Australian testing system thingy and I've got tests all week but I'm pretty chill about it (lol no).   
> My parents are stressing me out about it and I'll try my hardest to update as much as I can.


	7. Another One Bites the Dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Johndave becomes canon.

Your name is Dave Strider, and everyone thinks the Eridan-rescuing-heist went great. But it didn’t.

Well, here it did. Here, you averted calamity and no one was hurt. Here, you made it back safely. Here, Eridan is sleeping on the couch with a worried Karkat sleeping next to him and Kanaya watching warily from afar. Here, John is alive and baking victory cookies. Here, Rose is knitting Eridan a welcoming wizard beanie. Here, Jade is happily snoring away talking to a fish princess in her dreams.

But there…

Over there the mission failed, and you had to bail on that timeline.  
You have two sets of memories of the same events. It’s weird, but just before Kanaya was going to leap at the Dolorosa, the clock started ticking even crazier than usual and glowing with a weird light.  
Then, the memories came.

In your mind, Kanaya leaps at the Dolorosa, revving her chainsaw. Her chainsaw was met by another chainsaw. The fight was relatively short, Kanaya might be good with her chainsaw, but the Dolorosa had years of experience.  
In one swift movement, the Dolorosa chopped off Kanaya’s arm and pushed her down. You closed your eyes when you heard the horrific sound of chainsaw against meat. When you look down again, she’s been beheaded.  
Then, in a fit of rage, Eridan leapt forward brandishing Ahab’s Crosshairs. He too was mowed down, sliced in half by the Dolorosa’s blade.  
Desperately, you tried to hide John behind you, covering him with your body with your sword drawn. You could feel his breath against your neck and could hear him crying. You would not let him die.  
The Dolorosa didn’t seem at all phased by your giant broadsword and simply knocked it out of your hands with a surprising amount of strength. It tumbled down into the ocean below, barely making a splash.  
The Dolorosa motioned two guards to come closer, beckoning with manicured fingers. The two guards advanced on you, holding you down and forcing you to watch as…  
The Dolorosa plunged her chainsaw into John’s chest and revved it once. You screamed and struggled as bits of gore flew everywhere.   
Satisfied by the horrific murder of your best friend, she drops him on top of Kanaya and Eridans’ corpses. Jade and violet and red mix to create a hideous brown. The Dolorosa marches towards you, blood and gore dripping from her fingers.  
You scream in anger, struggling against the blue-blooded guards tight grip.  
“I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU” You screech at her, but she just smirks at you. You can see a fleck of gore sliding down her cheek, leaving a trail of violet blood. With a long tongue, she licks it off, swallowing the piece of flesh with relish.  
“I’ve always found that the higher a troll’s blood is, the tastier they get! Isn’t that something dearie?”  
You struggle harder, managing to free your wrist from one of the blue bloods grip. You take great satisfaction is socking the Dolorosa in the jaw, despite the pain it brings.  
Her features twist into an angry snarl.  
“Hold him down.” She instructs, and they obey.  
They pin you down to the bloody wooden floor, sitting on your limbs so you can’t move. Your back is drenched in blood and you’re crying, you realise that now. The Dolorosa stoops down to greet you, but instead of shaking your hand like a normal person, she rips away the cloth surrounding the clock on your chest.  
“Don’t touch me!” You snarl, but your words are ignored as she…touches it…

Whenever John (because he’s the only one you’ll ever let touch it, beside yourself. You guess it’s kinda like your dick in that way.) touched the clock, it was pleasurable. It was soothing and nice.   
But when she touches it, it feels wrong. It feels like someone is yanking at your very soul. You don’t like it.

You scream and struggle, but she’s too busy fiddling with it to pay you any heed.  
“You have not been using this responsibly? You’ve been given the power to travel through time, and all you’ve used it for is to get food from different points in time?”  
“Hey, fuck you! They’re my shitty time powers. I can do whatever I want with them!”  
“Except actually travel in time.” She states.  
It’s true. While you can manipulate time and warp objects through time (with Jade’s help) you’ve never actually travel in time.  
“Until now.” The Dolorosa finds what she was digging around in the Clock for. She flips the switch with a ‘chhnk’.  
Straight after she does that, you can feel the clock running even smoother than before. You didn’t even notice it wasn’t running properly. Kinda like being friends with a toxic person. You don’t know how good you had it before they came into your life.  
Unfortunately, as your clock gets righted, something else starts to feel wrong.  
Your back.  
It starts off subtly, but soon grows into a searing pain that leaves you screaming in pain.  
You can feel something…growing from your back. Slowly, painfully, you can feel every bit as giant wings sprout out from your back.  
“Now now pet, be silent. I’m just finishing the job Mindfang was supposed to.” The Dolorosa hums, watching with amusement as you scream and writhe in agony. 

Finally, finally, it is done. Hanging from your back are bleeding, bloodied wings. They’re black and covered in a reddish slime, much like a newborn baby is covered in that weird, placenta bullshit. They hurt like hell, and at the base you can make out the bloody wounds they emerged from. You know those scars will never go away.  
“What the…? Why?” You manage to gasp out.  
“We must make everyone like they were in the Before. And this my dear, was how you looked. Well…one of you anyway.”  
Mustering up all the saliva you can, you aim a spit ball at her.  
It lands on her shoe, and she stares at it in disgust.  
“Mature as ever I see.”  
“I pride myself on how completely mature I am.” You snarl back.  
Her jade-painted lips smile at you in a menacing way. “Now it is time for you, as the Knight of Time, to accept your role as the one to set things on the Right Path. Go back and change things. They are not supposed to die.”  
Normally, when someone kills your crush, decently good friend and stranger/ally, you won’t listen to them. But…they’ve given you the power to reverse time, to undo your mistakes. So, you do it.

You travel back and merge with your Alpha self, giving him the memories and the wings and knowledge.  
You stop Kanaya from attacking, pick up your friends and fly back to the hotel.

Since you landed, you’ve just hidden yourself away in your hotel bedroom. Well, you took a shower first. You had to wash away all the blood somehow.  
But you know, as you sit alone in the dimly lit hotel room, that the blood will never quite wash off.  
Although here it never happened, you know it still did.  
The giant fucking wings on your back prove it.

You hear a knock on the door.  
“Dave? Can I come in?” John’s voice reaches your ears, slightly muffled by the wooden door.  
“No.” Your reply is short and sweet (just like him)  
“I heard come in~” He sings out and opens the door, holding out a tray of freshly baked cookies.

Huh. They weren’t victory cookies after all. They were for you.

“What do you want?” That comes out harsher than intended and you regret it instantly. Especially when John flinches a little.  
“Well, everyone’s really worried about you. You came back with wings and covered in blood. They’re worried sick.”  
You look away and roll your eyes, hoping he’ll go away.  
He doesn’t. He sits on down right next to you, offering you cookies.  
“Well um, knowing you probably won’t want to talk about it, I made you cookies to make you feel better.”  
God you love this boy. Always knows how to cheer you up.  
Wordlessly, you take a cookie.

You can sense him smiling sadly at you as you chomp angrily on choc-chip goodness.

You know how determined he can get when a friend is upset or in trouble. I mean, he travelled halfway across the country just to see if you were ok. Granted, you did die. But still.  
Just like he knows you don’t want to talk about feelings, you know he will not leave until he’s certain you’re ok. He’d probably never leave your side if you never spill. Not that you’d mind, having John around 24/7 would be pretty fun. Although the two of you pretty much do.

“The three of you died. Horrifically and brutally. The Dolorosa pinned me down and gave me these…” You shoot a scathing glare at the feathery contraptions hanging from your back. “DISGUSTING THINGS. I travelled back in time and stopped it. I’d really rather not talk about it.” You laugh, a little maniacly.  
You stiffen a little as you feel pudgy arms wrap around your waist and a face press into your shoulder. You settle down a little when you realise it’s just John.  
He just holds you. He doesn’t say anything. Just sits there.  
It helps, it really does. To know he’s got your back no matter what.

You can’t help but sniffle a little bit. Soon, to your complete and utter embarrassment, you’re fucking bawling. John is rubbing your back (being mindful of the deep scars the wings left) whilst humming and being a general saint as usual.

You can’t fucking stop crying, but John wraps you in the scratchy hotel blankets and lies beside you and waits until the tears dry up.

Once they have, he plants a gentle kiss on your forehead. Despite the situation, you can’t help but blush.   
“Listen Dave. It’s not your fault ok? You’re the whole reason the mission was so successful. Please don’t blame yourself for their deaths ok?”  
You look sadly at him. Your faces are so close, your noses are touching. If you move a millimetre forward, your shades/glasses will clink together.  
“It’s not just that…I couldn’t do anything! I tried to shield you with my body but the Dolorosa she…her guards fucking held me down as she put her chainsaw through your chest. I couldn’t do shit!”  
Shyly, he kisses your nose, as if trying to convey a million different emotions at once. You know that he forgives you, despite it not being him who was brutally murdered with a chainsaw. You realise he loves you—forever and always. If what that cult says is true, and you really were gods in another life, you think he loved you there too. And you loved him back.  
“A-and, the wings…they hurt, so fucking much.” You whisper.

“Dave.” He finally says, sitting up. He pulls you up with him. Gesturing at your wings he shoots you a small smile. “May I?”  
All you can do is nod.

He reaches forward and gently places a hand on your wing. You shiver in a strange mix of fear and joy.  
His touch is soft and uncertain. He moves his hand in a comforting way, grooming your feathers back in place.  
“We could get some ointment or something to lessen the pain?” He murmurs, rubbing a particular fluffy and sensitive spot on your wings. You can’t help but make an embarrassing purring noise and press your head into John’s shoulders. He grins and shifts so that you’re sitting on his lap. Which is very comfortable and cushiony and makes you feel sleepy and safe.  
“I mean, if that’d help.”  
You simply nod and wrap your arms around him in a hug. You really hope that conveys the meaning that he’s helping too.  
He seems to get it, and runs his hands long lengths down your wings.  
“They’re really pretty you know. You shouldn’t be ashamed of them.”  
Of course he thinks that. John doesn’t give a shit that his cousin is a werewolf or that his best friend can probably see into his every little movement. So of course it never bothered him that you have a giant clock on your chest and huge fucking bird wings. What matters to him is who did it.  
You know he probably wants to murder everyone involved with that cult.

“Yeah, I guess so. Hey, does that mean I’m a furry now?” You ask, causing John to give you a withering glare.  
“I’m serious. We should start a club.”  
“Ugh, please don’t.”  
“Too late.” You hum. “I’m asking her tomorrow. What’s a good name for it?”  
“How about the ‘let’s not make this a thing’ club.”  
“Oh we’re doing this bro.”  
“What.”  
“We’re making this happen.”  
“Ugggggh I hate you so fucking much.” He groans, rolling his eyes.  
“Then why’d you kiss me this morning? Why are you holding me in your arms so tenderly?”  
“Uhhh…I” He blushes furiously, clearly flustered.  
Nervously, you press further. “So what does that mean, what are we?”  
“Look Dave, I…”  
“Really like you and think you’re super cool and hot?” You finish for him, resisting the urge to flip up your shades at him. You know what will happen. His eyes will go glassy and he’ll start drooling. You don’t know why, but your eyes do that now.  
He squeaks in a weirdly adorable way and you melt. Trying to keep up the cool façade, you reach down and give his nose a soft kiss.  
You really hope you read this right.

You’re not really one for public displays of affection, but John is. So when he kissed you on the nose and forehead earlier, you weren’t surprised. But when you kissed him, he freaked out a little.  
“Dave!? Are you feeling alright?”  
“I’m fine, now that you’re here…” You wink at him, but then realise he probably can’t see it.  
“Oh…well um…did it hurt when you fell from the heavens? Because baby, you’re out of this world.” He murmured, a little disappointedly.  
Worried he may think you’re just fucking with him, you place another kiss on his nose.  
“Umm…I have something to say.”  
You ignore the quiet ‘don’t you always’ and continue.

“Look, I’ve really liked you for a while, like, like liked you. You’re really funny and nice. You always know how to make me happy. Like right now! I mean, I was feeling pretty shitty, still kinda am if I’m honest. But you came along with cookies and cuddles and made me forget about it…at least for a little while. You’re so supportive! You don’t give a shit that I have wings now, you just want me to be happy! And don’t get me started on your looks! Man, you’re so attractive it hurts…I mean, your eyes are absolutely gorgeous. They’re like the bluest sky, like happily ever after and everything after that. Your hair is so messy, but I just wanna play with it because it is the fluffiest, softest thing I’ve ever felt. You’re freaking adorable and so cuddly soft…I just called you a detergent, didn’t I?  
Not saying you aren’t a detergent, but I--“   
You’re cut off by a soft smooch on your mouth.  
“I love you too you silly goober.”

You giggle nervously as he kisses you again.  
Pretty soon, the two of you are cuddling up together in the hotel room, enjoying each other’s company. He’s wrapped in your wings, and pretty in awe of them still.  
You guess the two of you are a thing now?  
You’re happy.

 

Your name is Eridan Ampora, and man you are bored right now.

Well Eridan, why don’t you alleviate your boredom by telling us a bit about yourself?

Well fine, it’s not like you have anything better to do.

Your name is Eridan Ampora, and you are twelve years old.  
You used to live in an old, abandoned shipwreck with your seahorse dad. Which was pretty fucking cool. But then you had to leave, which was also pretty fucking cool.  
You love wizards, even though you know they are fakey fake bullshit. You enjoy learning about the great and almighty conquerors that came before you. One day you hope to fill up all your quadrants, not just your moirail quadrant. But, your families luck with romance isn’t the best, so you have to hope really hard.  
The Dolorosa said you were the Prince of Hope, so that must mean you have to hope with all your heart, and then it’ll come true…right?

You’re not as bored anymore, so you think you’ll unpause your life.

The seven of you are grouped around John’s car, saying your goodbyes.  
You’re all getting ready to head back to ‘base’. Which is the term the humans use when referring to Roses house.  
Jade will be using her spacey science powers to teleport yourself, Rose, Kanaya and Karkat back to the base. Jade unfortunately, can’t teleport herself, so will be driving all the way back. John refused to let her drive all the way there by herself, and insisted that he comes with her. Dave, being seemingly unable to detach himself from John’s arm (not clingy my ass) had to go with as well.

Jade waves her hands excitedly. “Are ya ready kids?” She crows, closing one eye and adopting her pirate voice.  
“Aye aye cap’n!” you crow back.  
She grins and shoots you a thumbs up. “I like you kid.”  
“Thanks. I like me too.”  
She chuckles and shakes her head before clapping her hands.  
“Right everyone. Get ready, because I’m going to teleport you!” She moves her fingers to create a rectangle that encompasses the four of us. Squinting a little, she pokes her tongue out from between her lips as her fingers start to crackle with green electricity.

It’s so bright, you have to close your eyes. When you open them, Jade, John and Dave aren’t there anymore, instead, you’re standing in front of a large, curious building.  
It’s a strange mixture of burnt out cement and wood with a metallic shell. You get the feeling the latter was added on later.   
It’s actually pretty cool looking, the burnt out husk reminding you of your own wrecked ship-hive.

You feel a tiny hand grasp yours.  
“We gotta find you a room!” Karkat practically yells in your ear and begins to drag you towards the house.  
“H-hold up Kar! Slow down a bit!” You yell as he drags you, quite forcefully.  
“Keep up fuckass!” He simply yells back.

With your back turned, you don’t notice Kanaya and Rose exchange amused, yet worried looks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lololol  
> also, I have a new pokemon game (black 2) and I was playing it while writing the second half of the chapter.  
> I love my babies (growlithe named jade, riolu named karkat, flaaffy named aradia and oshawott named Feferi)


	8. The Meeting of Assholes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just a short one with lots of bullshit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect lots of updates from my playthrough of pokemon black 2.  
> I had to restart unfortunately, because they wouldn't let me out of a movie theatre.  
> Current Team  
> Dave-Lucario (he likes me!!!!)  
> Jade-Growlithe  
> Feferi-Dewott  
> Aradia-Flaaffy

Your name is Feferi Peixes, and you have always been bad at waiting.

You have called the first official ‘Dream Bubble Meeting Session’ into order.  
There are currently seven people (not including yourself) in your ‘prime meeting bubble’.  
Jade is sitting behind you, plaiting your hair. Eridan is sitting in front of you, talking animatedly about the ‘escape’. Karkat is sitting next to him, actively disputing every word-despite not being there himself.  
Kanaya and Rose are sitting together, watching Eridan and Karkat banter with amusement on their faces. John and Dave are parodying Jade and yourself, Dave spreading out his wings and John grooming them.

You’ve been meeting with your friends over the past few days, organising this meet up. So far, no one else has arrived.

Just as you say that, a small, lithe girl followed by a small, muscly guy walk in. They seem to be arguing about something or other. When they see you, the girl perks up and skips over, dragging the boy behind her.

“Fefurry! Karkitty! Pawnaya! Eridan! Furrends!” She calls waving around her cat-gloved paw at you.  
“Shello Catfish” You call back, jumping up to give her an enthusiastic hug. Unfortunately, Jade is plaiting your hair, and accidently yanks you back down.   
“Ouch!”  
“Sorry Feferi!” Jade pats your head a little.  
“Your royal highness…are you alright?” The boy spoke up, sweating a little.  
You frown. “Equius, what have I told you about the royalty thing? You know the hemo-casting is bullshit.”  
He looked physically taken aback, clearly offended. “Your highness!” He gasped, putting his hand over his mouth. “Such language is unbefitting of your blood. I must ask you to take steed and refrain from such crude language—with all due respect of horse…course.”  
Nepeta taps him on the arm, getting his attention.  
“Equius! Don’t be fucking rude!”  
“Now Nepeta, what have I told you about—“  
She cuts him off with a loud raspberry. He looks even more offended.

At this point, you tune out of their conversation, because you know it will be back and forth ‘Nepeta, I implore you not to—‘ ‘Nepeta yes!’.  
Also because Gamzee is here. You didn’t even see him enter, but now he’s sitting next to Karkat and staring blankly at Eridan.

“Shello Clownfish!”  
He snaps out of his trance and looks up at you. His heavily made up splits into a wide grin.  
“Hey Fefsis!”  
He then turned his attention back to staring at Eridan and nothing you could do would rouse him from that.

But that was ok, because Sollux was here now, being pushed along by a pissed off looking Terezi.  
“Oh come on Sollux! Don’t be such an asshole. Come join this fascinating smelling party!” Terezi cackles, slapping Sollux hard on the back.  
“Ouch! Watch it TZ!” Came the lispy reply.  
“Shello fronds!” You yell out to them, waving your hand. Terezi aims a sharp-toothed grin in what she assumes is your direction. Sollux has to move her so that she actually is.  
“Sorry, can’t really tell where you are with all these delicious new smells about!”  
“Smells? What do you mean by that?” Rose buts in to ask.  
Terezi grins at her. “Ooooh Lavender! Well Miss Lavender, let me tell you a story, all about how…” She ambles over to Rose and begins talking about how her life ‘got all turned upsidedown’.

Tavros walks in, hurriedly wheeling his way away from Vriska, who’s right behind him.  
You smile and wave to both of them. Tavros returns it with a shy smile, but Vriska sticks up her middle finger at you.  
Damn nine year olds and their need to be cool.

Great, now only one more and-  
“It’s funny. The apocalypse is inevitable, yet you are fighting against it anyway.”  
There she is.  
You turn to look down at the small, chubby girl who just appeared next to you.  
“Shello Aradia, how have you been?”  
Behind you, Jade jumps a little at the sudden appearance of the nine year old.  
“Umm hi there little one!”  
Aradia turns her blank, expressionless eyes to Jade. “Hello.”  
Jade, obviously expecting a larger response, sat flabbergasted as Aradia began to float away.  
“I’m so sorry. She does that.” You tell her, patting her hand affectionately.  
“She’s always like that? So dull and bored that she can’t even hold a simple conversation with getting bored?”  
You look at Aradia’s transparent back sadly. “Not always. I’ll tell you later.”

Untangling Jade’s fingers from your hair you stand up and clap to get everyones attention.  
Fourteen pairs of eyes turned to meet yours. The fifteenth gets nudged in the ribs by their matesprit (Jade says they’re boyfriends) and shuts up, turning their gaze towards you.

“Ladies and gentlefins! I believe we have business to discuss!” There is silence around the dream-hall, which is unusual, considering your friends never shut up. Encouraged by their silence, you continue.  
“We are gathered here today to—“  
You’re cut off by immature snickering coming from Dave.   
“Did I say something funny?” You say sternly, squint-glaring at him through your goggles.  
“No, not at all your highness.” He replied, voice filled with sarcasm.  
“Whale good. I’m being serious.”

You continue, deciding to ignore Dave.  
“Whale, there is a reason I called you all here1”  
“Well yeeeeeeeeah duh Peixes, we all know that. We’re gonna fight the power!” Vriska interrupts you.  
“Well yes Fishka, we will be doing that but we need to—“  
“We should like, rip open their skulls and feast on their flesh and dance on their still-warm corpses.”  
The room freezes, staring in shock at the surprisingly psychopathic response from the seven year old.   
“Thankyou Gamzee, for that idea. But lets save that one for a little later, maybe never.”   
“Sure thing sis!” Gamzee grinned, as if his contribution really helped.

“So Fefurry, what is the plan?!” Nepeta pipes up, staring at you with wide orange eyes.   
You…don’t have a plan.  
Shit.

John decides to step in, noticing your slight distress.  
“Well actually, we don’t really have a plan? We don’t really know where any of you live, but we’re just kind of winging it. I mean, we didn’t know any of you existed until like, a month ago.” He shrugged.  
“If you have any ideas, then go ahead.”

His words were met with a stunned silence. After a few seconds of silence, a hushed murmuring fell over the group. It soon grew into loud, nervous chattering.  
You try to speak, but no one can hear you over the noise. You’ve never been one for yelling, but even that didn’t work.  
“EVERYONE SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Karkat’s tiny baby voice screeched out over everyones yelling.   
Everyone shut up.

“Thankyou Karkat.” You hum, ruffling his hair.  
“Now everyone! Let’s voice our ideas one at a time, ok?”  
Nepeta puts her hand up, waving it around for attention.  
“Yes catfish?”  
“Well, purrhaps, some of us should try to escape and make our own way to the base? I believe that Aradia can like, furly over to mew or something? I mean, you aren’t guarded are you?”  
“No. I am not guarded. I suppose I could travel all the way to your base. They will not miss me.” Aradia turns her gaze to John. “I will be there soon.”

John looks a little disturbed but says nothing, simply nodding.

“I live in fucking Tokyo, how the fuck am I supposed to walk to fucking America AC?” Sollux snaps at Nepeta. Equius perks up angrily, but Nepeta paps him on the cheek.  
“Well, can’t you fly with your psychic powers dweeblux?” Vriska calls out, smirking. Sollux turns to her, red and blue electricity crackling around his eyes.  
“Shut the fuck up Vriska!”  
“What was that? Speak properly asshole.”

Sollux opens his mouth but Terezi is on the scene.   
“Vriska, shut up. Let them speak. Don’t clog up everyone’s ear holes with your annoying voice.”  
“Ooooh sick burns Rezi” Dave called out, high fiving her as mutterings of ‘oooh’ went around the room.  
“Whatever.” Vriska blushed angrily, flipping her hair.

“Well then, if Aradia and Sollux are flying—“   
“—Hell no! I’m not flying all the way from Japan—“  
“—Aradia will need something to house her soul in—“  
“—uhhh, I can’t exactly walk. For um…two reasons—“  
“—Equius and Vwhiskers are neighbours! Mew can rescue them together—“  
“—Oh hell no! I don’t need to be rescued. I ain’t some damsel in distress—“  
“—Nepeta I refuse to leave until I know you are safe—“  
“—nah Vriska, you’re just an asshole in permanent constipation!—“

The meeting soon dissolved into chaos, just like you knew it would. You sigh and lean back onto Jade’s arms.  
A least you got something of a plan. That’s more than you were hoping for.

Jade strokes your hair reassuringly.  
“Don’t worry Feferi! We can do it. We’ll rescue you all.”  
You smile back at her. “I know you will. But just remember Jade, you won’t be able to rescue them all.”  
To your relief, she lets your ominous words go, instead making an array of flowers to place amongst your wavy locks.

You’re glad.  
You don’t want her to know.  
She can’t know.  
You won’t let her.


	9. The Cat and the Ghost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nepeta and Aradia fuck shit up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's so late, but my precious pokemon are very important to me and I am so, so proud of them.  
> Jade-Growlithe  
> Feferi-Samurott  
> Aradia-Ampharos  
> Dave-Lucario  
> Kanaya-Espeon.  
> I don't have a full team yet, although I do have a Volcarona named Vriska I found in some ruins.

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you’ve never been one for the outdoors.

You’ve always been one for the indoors. For curling up under your bedsheets with a torch and a good book while the rain hits the roof above you. Of kicking it back and takin’ ‘er easy. Unless you’re Jade.  
Jade grew up on an island with dirt and nature. She is accustomed to feeling the earth between her toes and being covered with dirt and twigs.

Jade, Kanaya and yourself are currently trekking up a steep, bush-covered mountain in search of Nepeta’s cave. Equius, her short, muscly moirail, refused to let himself be rescued until he knew she was safe. Which was sweet of him, but inconvenient to you.  
She gave the three of you a map to her hive-cave, but you’re still having a bit of trouble locating it. But Kanaya says she’s visited Nepetas hive once and she knows where she’s going.

Speaking of Kanaya, you can’t help but have a deep admiration for her. Just a deep admiration for her. That’s it.  
You admire her for taking a stand against those who held her captive. You admire her for her determination to keep her fellow captives safe and on the right path. You admire her impeccable fashion tastes and the way she can make anything look good. You admire her petite figure and her perfect hair. You admire the subtle curve of her horns.  
You admire her—oh great. You think you’re getting a crush.

You’ve always known and been perfectly fine with your sexuality. It was the children at school who didn’t accept you.  
Thick gothic makeup, fondness for the occult, lesbian. Yeah, you didn’t have any friends. Except for John, Dave and Jade. But…it wasn’t the same.  
They weren’t there to stop the words, or the punches.   
But they still helped you through it, even if they didn’t know it.

“You alright there Rose?” Jade’s voice cuts through the haze of your thoughts. You blink and shake your head to clear the intrusive Seer thoughts.  
“I’m fine, just thinking.” You reply, awkwardly stepping over a stay log.  
“Are you sure you’re fine? Over-thinking is bad for you, you get overwhelmed.” 

Jade is referencing the fact that you turn to the bottle whenever the Seer thoughts get out of hand. She hates when you do that and you do to. But you can’t help it. You guess it’s a genetic thing. I mean your mum was a serious functioning alcoholic so…  
Yeah, let’s not think about your mum. It still hurts to think about.

“I said I’m fine Jade.”  
Due to the tone of your voice, Jade dropped that topic.  
And switched to a way more embarrassing one.

“So, I see you staring at Kanaya. Do you lliiiike her?” Jade asked in a sing-song tone, much like a kindergartener seeing their friend with their crush.  
“Shut up Jade!” You hiss back, much like that kindergarteners friend would. Luckily Kanaya is out of earshot, standing delicately on top of a rock ahead of you.   
Jade gasps in mock surprise, tail wagging excitedly. “Oh my God! You do!”  
“No. I do not.”  
“You totally do. I see the way you look at her.” Jade grinned, jumping over a rock with a single bound.   
“Uggh! It’s not like that! It’s complicated.”  
“Too complicated for your best friend?” She gives you a puppy dog look, and her ears and droopy tail just made the look bigger.  
“No. I know I like to discuss my friends’ feelings, but mine are out of question.”  
She said nothing, only pouting even harder. After a full minute of a staring contest, you give up.

“Alright fine. I might like her. There, happy?”  
“Now it’s my turn to psycho-analyse your feelings!”  
“What? No Jade you don’t know ho—“  
“I psycho-analyse that because you were staring at Kanaya’s ass, you wanna tap that.” Jade proclaimed loudly.  
“Jade! No! Keep it down…” You hiss at her, shooting a glance over at Kanaya. Luckily, she was still too far ahead and didn’t hear you.  
“What? Afraid she’ll hear that you have a super-ultra-mega crush on her-“ You put your hand over her mouth before she can get too loud.   
“I now understand why everyone gets so pissed when I try to psycho analyse them.”  
“mpou fthink?” Jade managed to get out through your hand.  
“What was that?” You tease.  
Suddenly, a long wet tongue makes its way up your palm. You recoil your hand in disgust.  
“Jade that’s disgusting.”  
“Sorry.” She shrugged, shooting you an innocent-yet malicious grin. “Must be all Bec’s doggy instincts!”  
“Still gross.” You mutter, wiping your hand on your pants.

“Anyway, about getting you together with Kanaya.”  
“What? No.”  
“Feferi told me that Nepeta is quite the shipper. She can help!”  
You decide to give Jade a taste of her own medicine and change the subject.

“Speaking of Feferi…How is YOUR super-ultra-mega crush on her going?”  
“Uggh no! Please don’t do this Rose!”  
“Do what? I’m merely stating a fact.”  
“I really don’t want to talk about her. She’s really amazing, but I’m pretty sure she has a thing going on with Eridan. Even though he’s like, four years younger than her and kind of a douche.”  
You smile as she groans and rolls her shoulders back.  
“Hmm well it could be worse…”  
She turns to you, a little angrily. “What?”  
“She secretly could be Donald Trump, or the Sufferer.”  
“Or one of the strange creatures that I swear lives in the piles Dave leaves around the house.”  
“Or one of the old mouldy socks Dave keeps under his bed.”  
Jade chuckles. “Man, this is turning to a shit-on-Dave session. Sorry it went from stupid crushes to your stupid cousin.”  
“That’s fine. It’s better than walking in silence.” You hum, jumping over a small rock.

“What are you two talking about?” Kanaya’s voice echoes down from above. As Jade and yourself were walking, you somehow failed to notice the sudden steep incline beside you. Kanaya was standing at the top, waving down at you.   
“Things.” “Stuff.” You said in unison.  
“Wow. Fascinating topic huh?” Kanaya laughs.  
“Totally” You reply. “So are we supposed to get up there or…?”  
“Yes. Nepeta’s cave is up the rocky slope.” Came the distant reply.

You and Jade share annoyed looks.  
You have a lot of climbing to do.

 

Your name is Aradia Megido and you are bored.  
Well actually, you’re always bored. Ever since the accident.

You might as well introduce yourself, seeing as it might alleviate the constant boredom you find yourself in.

Your name is Aradia Megido and you are four and a half sweeps old. Or nine years old if you want to get technical.  
You grew up in a country-side house in the Philippines, with your goat mum and the spirits of the dead whispering in your ear.  
You enjoyed exploring the archaeological ruins around your hive, flarping with your friends and pretending you were Troll Indiana Jones in the mirror. Enjoyed. Past tense.  
You don’t enjoy anything anymore…  
The spirits tell you what to do and what not to do.  
And you do what the spirits tell you. Always.

Except now.

They are currently screaming at you as you fly across the Pacific Ocean.  
You’re ignoring their threats and complaints and screams.  
You’re focusing on the waves far, far below you. But only because it’s distracting you from the voices.

You pretend to be interested as the scenery switched from the vast, expansive ocean to the mountainy shores of the United States. You pretend to watch as the sun dips from the horizon and day turns to night.   
You watch with vague interest as the landscape changes below you. 

Soon, you’re settling down on the grass outside a large mansion that you assume is the humans base. You assume this because you can hear the loud yelling of Karkat and whining of Eridan coming from behind the house.  
Deciding it would be funny to scare the shit out of them, you creep around the side of the house. Peering around the side of the house, you observe four people-two humans and two trolls-laughing and toasting marshmallows around a toasty looking fire.  
Smirking to yourself, you start to fuck around with your telekinetic powers. The bag of marshmallows fly out of Dave’s hands. A chair is hurled into the fire. Shit is destroyed. A group of boys screaming because of you. (Well, except Dave. He’s to cool to lose his shit because of a nine year old).  
Just the way you like it.

That was fun, but now you’re bored again. You set down the floating objects and step out of the shadows.

“Hello.”

You are met with four different screams and it is glorious.

 

Your name is Nepeta Leijon, and you are waiting.

Well then Nepeta, while you wait, why don’t you introduce yourself?

Sure!

Your name is Nepeta Leijon and you are thirteen years old. You’ve grown up in a cave with your lusus Pounce and the two blue-blood guards stationed outside your cave at all times. It’s pretty fun.  
You fucking love cats. And cat puns. And hunting like a cat. And roleplaying as a cat…  
Also shipping. You are the best at shipping in your group. 

Anyway, back to waiting.  
You are waiting for Kanaya, Rose and Jade to come and take you to their base. You would go there yourself, but Pounce is getting old, and won’t be able to make the trip.  
So, you’re stuck with waiting.

You already finished packing. Only stuff you’ll really need. Spare clothes, treats for Pounce, some milk for when you meet with Equius, a few balls of yarn and a teapot with loads of chamomewile tea.  
It is all stored safely in the bag you wrapped around Pounce.

Speaking of Pounce, she’s currently being used as a warm, purring, furry body-pillow as you stare up at your shipping wall.  
You think it will be the thing in your hive that you’ll miss the most. You’ve spent YEARS perfecting it.  
From your first ship all the way up to the current, sprawling grid in front of you. Absent-mindedly you stroke Pounces soft white fur.

“Do you think they’d let us make a new one? I mean, they’d have plenty of room in their base, right?”  
Pounce purrs in response.  
“I hope so! They’ll be so many people there to ship!”  
More purring.  
“They all seem so cool! I hope they roleplay with me. I hope they like me.” You say, a little miserably.  
Pounce licks your cheek affectionately.  
“You’re right Pounce. I’m purrfectly likeable! We’ll all be great furrends in no time, I’m sure of it.”

You lapse back into silence, the only sounds being Pounces purrs, the murmuring of the two blue-blood guards and the ‘quiet’ sneaking of three human-sized noises.  
Just the normal sounds of the caves and the bush around you.

Wait a second…  
Three human sized noises??  
They’re here!

This is further punctuated by the sound of weapons being readied and shouts of surprise.  
Excited, you unsheathe your claws and sneak towards the guards.

You’ve never liked them, and they’ve never liked you.  
They used to mock your ships and your attitude. They didn’t bother to give you the time of day. They refused your peace offering of a lovely wingbeast.  
You nearly took their eyes out.  
They’re scared of you now.

Cautiously and carefully, you sneak up behind the worst guard. He’d actually hit you on numerous occasions. Now it’s time for you to take your revenge.  
With a graceful leap, you land on his back and dig your claws in. Blue blood sprays everywhere and the guard yells in shock.  
The other guard is too busy being sawn in half to help.  
With sadistic pleasure, you rip open the guard’s stomach, spilling out blue stained guts to the floor. You know Equius would disapprove, but you don’t care.

Once the deed is done, you turn to the three shocked girls in front of you.  
“Hi!” You smile, waving excitedly at them.

 

Your name is John Egbert, and boy does this Aradia girl know how to pull a prank.  
Although she did say she wasn’t playing a prank, she was just bored.

She does seem to get bored a lot.

She’s currently sitting with the four of you as you tell scary stories around the campfire. Karkat is surprisingly silent as he sits listening, mouth agape. Eridan is leaning back on the log with his arms crossed, acting like he’s not scared. He is.  
Dave is making smart-ass comments under his breath about your story, saying how bad it was.  
You guess he’s right.

It’s kind of hard to make up scary stories when a real life ghost is in your midst.

Yes. You are toasting marshmallows around a fire and telling scary stories. It’s so cliché and domestic and you love it.   
You’re all waiting for Jade, Rose, Kanaya and Nepeta to come back.

Before they left, you took Rose aside and asked if Dave could be excluded from the rescue party.  
She already knew why, and said she predicted that the mission should go fine.

You’re glad. You don’t want him to see anything else that would traumatise him again.  
Like his best friends getting brutally murdered right in front of him.

So you hold him closer, and enjoy what you have.  
Because you have a feeling it will all get ripped away very soon.


	10. The Horse and The Spider

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short and shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My pokemon are going great--so great in fact, I'm witing pokestuck.  
> Weird, weird pokestuck but :/  
> It's taking a while, all things.  
> I have this fic, the pokestuck fic, my own pokemon and other bs like watching game grumps, wtnv and listening to music to balance all at once.
> 
> Anyway, sorry for the shittiness-the next one will be better I promise.

Your name is Dave Strider and your boyfriend is the biggest dork in existence you swear.  
He’s currently squirming on your lap as you help put his clothes on.  
Yes, you know he is sixteen (nearly seventeen) and can normally dress himself, but this is a special case.  
The two of you were trying to be sexy.  
But the clothes are too complicated for him apparently.

Honestly.

“John, stop fucking moving. This stealth suit is hard enough to put on without you doing the fucking worm.”  
“Maybe I want to do the worm. Have you thought of that?”  
“Well you are terrible at the worm. Just so you know.”  
He manages to untangle his arm from the mess and lightly hit you on the shoulder.  
“Hey! I’d like to see you do better.”  
“Oh yeah? Watch me Egbert, I fucking will.”

You push him off your lap, leaving him to the mercy of his ‘practical’ one-piece. Rose and Kanaya worked to make one for everyone. They come packed with supplies and various tools to help in missions. They differ from person to person, with different colours and styles, but they all share the same purpose.   
John’s is very tight with lots of hidden pockets and a rather pretty dark blue.

You swear Rose winked at you when she handed you your suits. Fucking smug asshole.

Anyway, you’re on the floor doing the best worm to have ever wormed and John’s finally got his fucking clothes on.  
He slips down next to you, watching you with a bemused expression.

Once you’re finished showing off your sick moves, John leans forward to give you a sweet smooch on the lips. You practically melt into his touch and he snickers a little at that.  
“I love you.” He whispers to you. He says that quite a lot, but it hasn’t lost any of its original meaning.  
“Love you too Egbuns.”  
He kisses you again, and you crawl onto his lap.

John, alongside Kanaya and Nepeta, are going off to rescue Vriska and Equius. Nepeta reckoned that Equius would come very easily once he saw her, but Vriska is a stubborn piece of shit. Kanaya said she’d deal with Vriska. Which sounded very menacing.  
John said he’ll be backup-you have had a habit of teams of three lately.  
You know he didn’t want you to come. You heard him talking to Rose about it last week, before she headed off to rescue Nepeta. At first, you were a little annoyed. You could handle it!   
But then you remembered the way Kanayas, Eridans and Johns blood pooled together to create that hideous brown colour. And you realised it was probably for the best.  
You are still recovering.  
You find it amazing how much John cares about you.

John pulls you in for another kiss.  
“What’s wrong baby? You worried about tonight?”  
You nod, a little sulkily and put your head on his shoulder. He strokes your back and wings reassuringly, causing pleasurable shivers to run up your spine.  
“Don’t worry baby, everything will be fine. What could go wr—“  
You shut him up with a rather messy kiss on his lips.  
“Don’t say that. It’s bad luck. Gonna make everything go wrong.”  
“Alright. If it makes you feel better, I won’t say that at all.” 

Smiling, he gathers you in blankets and peppers little kisses across your face.  
It makes you feel so much better. You wrap your wings around his chubby frame and kiss him back.

You hold each other until it’s time for him to go.

You hope everything’s ok.

I mean, what could go wrong?

 

Your name is Equius Zahhak, and someone is scratching at your door, in an attempt to get into your hive.  
Normally, this would be a cause for alarm, but you have a feeling you know who it is.

Instead of telling us who you think it is, how about you tell us about yourself?

Well, if you insist.

Your name is Equius Zahhak and you are fifteen years old. You live in a rather large hive with your butler lusus. You also live next door to one of the biggest bitches in your group, but more about that later.  
You are quite skilled in robotics, and spent quite a lot of time working on various robots to fight with. Despite that violence, you also spend a lot of time performing the classy high-blood art of creating muscle-beast art. Which is NOT furry porn, despite what Nepeta says.

Anyway, back to the scratching at your door.

You get up from your desk, which is strewn with the parts of your latest project. With a little more force than unintentionally necessary, you open the door.  
Standing there with a big grin on her face is Nepeta.

As soon as she sees you, she tackle-pounces you into a big hug. You have to resist the urge to hug her back. With your strength, you’d probably crush her spine. 

“Nepeta? What are you doing here?”  
She breaks the hug, looking at you with wide eyes. “Well, we’re here to rescue you and Vwhiskers, remember?”  
“Yes I do recall but—“  
She puts her finger on your lips and shushes you.  
“Equihorse, purrlease. Let’s just get out of here, ok?”  
“Well I…let me get my project first, okay?”

She nods, and you head over to your workbench.  
Carefully, you begin to pack away the pieces to the robot. Nepeta looks (and helps), but doesn’t make any comments.  
Once you are done, she leaps onto your back in a kitty-horse ride.  
“Nepeta, I insist you don’t—“  
“Ride on my stead! Take us to victory!”  
“Nepeta—“  
“To freedom!” She shouts, kicking at your sides a little.  
“To freedom! To freedom!” She continues when you don’t move.

When she finally stops you move forward, prompting giggles from Nepeta.  
You’ve just closed your hive door when you see two figures rush past you. You wouldn’t pay them much heed, except Nepeta is hissing and growling at them with such ferocity. Taking a closer look, you realise they’re carrying someone into the woods. Despite only meeting him once, you recognise the person instantly.  
The person doesn’t appear to be struggling, so they must be unconscious.

Nepeta hisses and leaps off of your shoulders and onto the grass below.  
“Nepeta, isn’t that…”  
She looks at you with a determined look in her eyes. “Yep. That’s John.” She grabs your hand, palms rough and calloused against your own.  
“C’mon Equihorse, let’s go save him.”

 

Your name is Vriska Serket, and dammit, you wanted to save yourself.  
Why? Well because it would make you so cool and badass. Also it’d get Miss Kanaya Fussyfangs and her nerdy friend out of your hive.

How about instead of complaining about someone who wants nothing more than to help you, you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure, if you’re that fascinated with someone you haven’t even met.

Your name is Vriska Serket and you are nine years old. You live in a huge mansion with your spidermum, who you do not get along with.  
You enjoy flarping, and your flarping character is the absolute best. You modelled her after your actual mum, not that you’re telling anyone that. You also love spiders and breaking things and the number eight.

“Honestly Vriska, if you just cleaned up your room every once in a while.”  
“You’re not my mum.”  
“No I’m not! I’m your friend! I’m worried about you Vriska.”

“Um guys?”   
John’s voice worms its way into your conversation. “I’m uh…gonna go outside to um…guard the door! Yeah that’s right. Ok bye.”  
He hurries outside, flushing under your confused gaze.

“He’s weird.” You say after his retreating back.  
“Will that be a problem?” Kanaya puts a slender hand on her hips.  
“No. I was just stating a fact, jeez”  
“Back to what I was saying, we need to go.”  
“Um no, you can go. I am going to rescue myself.”  
“Vriska that’s stupid.”  
“No it’s not! You just don’t understand because you’re a bossy little bitch who is way too invested in my life.”  
“Vriska. You’re 9. I’m 17. Right now, given the situation, I’m in charge.”  
“What? Because you’re older than me? That’s bullshit.”  
“Watch your language young lady.”

You cross your arms and sulk. Kanaya just stares at you with an annoyed expression on her face.

“Vriska!”  
“…” You say nothing, meeting her stare with your own.

Eventually, she caves in and lets out an exasperated sigh. “Fine! But, we’re compromising. I’ll go outside and wait with John. You go and do your ‘rescue yourself’ bullshit and get out of your house. Then, we’ll rendezvous with Equius and Nepeta and head back to base. You will NOT, under any circumstances fuck off on your own. Got it?”

Knowing it’s the closest thing you’ll get to a yes, you agree. 

You push Kanaya out of your room and begin to pack.  
Your flarping manual, spare eight-balls in case you get bored, a grabblng hook, your eight dice and attitude.   
You grin to yourself and proceed to sneak out of your house. Sliding down stairs, jumping off railings, sneaking through doorways-you feel like a total badass. In reality however, you probably look like a total idiot.

Once you’ve successfully snuck out of your hive, you’re greeted with a pair of arms wrapped around you, pulling you in for a hug.   
“Oh thank goodness you’re ok my child.”  
“Kanaya? What the fuck? Get off me!” You cry out, pushing her away. “I know you’re obsessed with me, but please chill out.”

But you feel a dampness on your hair, and realise Kanaya is crying.  
It is only then you realise the morbid atmosphere. You notice Nepeta sitting on Equiuss shoulders, both looking solemn.  
You can’t see the human, John, anywhere.

“What’s wrong? Why are you crying?”

Kanaya looks at you, jade tears spilling from her eyes.

“John’s gone…he’s been kidnapped.


	11. God of Wind, Born Anew

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Right in the title lol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok so, chapters will definitely take a lot longer to update. I'm pretty busy with other fics and shit, plus I'm at the stage when you look at your own work and immediately hate it. So yeah, maybe a once a week kinda thing?

Your name is John Egbert, and everything hurts so badly.

You can’t think, can’t move, can’t breathe. You can vaguely hear voices somewhere in the room, but they’re faint. Almost unheard whispers at the corner of your mind.  
You try to focus on what they’re saying, but it hurts too much.  
So instead, you focus on not dying.  
That sounds much better.

After a little while of not dying, you experiment. Slowly, you open your eyes.  
You immediately shut them.  
Everything is so bright and white. It’s like someone is purposely shining a light in your face.  
Just like in all those spy movies, where the protagonist is strapped to the table and the villain does stuff to them.  
If that’s the case, you know what’s coming next.

Torture.

“Ah. Mr Egbert, you’re awake.”

Yes. This is exactly like a shitty spy film.

You blink your eyes open and try to focus on one thing. Unfortunately, they’ve taken your glasses and you can’t see clear for shit.  
Also, you’ve been tied down by thick leather straps and can’t move. 

“No shit Sherlock.” You manage to get out—despite the crushing pain in your chest.  
“Still got some spunk left, that’s good.”  
You hear beside you. Something about that voice sounds very familiar. You just can’t put your finger on it. You’ve got to get the voice to talk a bit more.   
“Yeah well when you’re tied to a table, hurting all over and finding hard to breathe, being spunky is the only way to go.” You call out, looking around the room in a desperate attempt to see the owner of the voice.

It’s hopeless. Apart from where you’re tied up, everything is dark. For all you know, a full on quiet orchestra could be surrounding you and you would have no idea.  
Luckily, the voice decides to step out of the darkness to greet you.

The first thing you notice is that she’s a troll (of course she’s a fucking troll why the fuck not). She isn’t tall, but isn’t short either. She’s got horns kind of like Vriska does—curved on one side and rounded on the other. She’s wearing some weird pirate getup and wheeling in a trolley covered in scalpels and knives.

“Who the fuck are you supposed to be?”

 

“Aranea Serket, at your service.” She tips her large, feathery hat at you.  
“You’re that bitch who murdered my boyfriend!” You cry out and fight the restraints holding you down.   
Dave doesn’t know how much of his death you heard, and he doesn’t want you to know. Just like you don’t want him to know you heard all of it. And cried. A lot.  
“Oh honey, I prefer the term ‘converted’. Just like what I’m going to do to you.” She waves a scalpel in your face. You flinch back the best you can.  
“Yeah well I prefer the term ‘murdered’ because that’s what you did to them. My friends. Not just my boyfriend.”

Her pretty face contorts into a snarl and she strikes you cheek with the scalpel. It stings, and you feel a line of warm blood trickle down your cheek. You hiss in pain and glare at her.

“Quiet! It’s bad enough this isn’t correct—I don’t need you conscious through the Conversion.” She snaps at you.  
You decide to stall for time and keep her talking. She seems to be one who talks a lot.   
“Isn’t correct? Well excuuuuuuuuse me princess for being myself.”  
“Oh not you, don’t think you’re so special. The Order of what happened Before—it’s been all messed up.”  
“What? You didn’t maim my friends in the right order? Is that what you’re saying?”  
“Not maim. Convert.”  
“Fine. You didn’t ‘convert’ my friends in the right order.”  
“That is correct. Out of the Four, you were supposed to ascend first. Then, Jade. Then finally, the other two, both at the same time. But there were some…complications. We had to mix everything around in order to complete the process.”  
“Complications? What do you mean by that?”  
“I mean we had to stop them from being killed.”  
“What, by killing them? That makes no sense.”  
“No, you see—“

She is interrupted by a low growl coming from the darkness of the room. You startle.  
Something about that growl sounds animalistic, warped, murderous.  
You want nothing to do with it.

Aranea also seems scared of it, and jumps back a little.   
“A-ah! My bad. I spoke too much. My apologies. Now, before I let anything else slip up, it’s time.”

“Time for what? Because I think that’s more my boyfriends division then mine.”

The other figure, the owner of the voice from the darkness, steps out of the shadows.  
You say figure, because you don’t think they’re human anymore.  
They’re tall and covered in black fur. They share some similarities with Jade in the whole, covered in fur, dog features and crackling with green electricity. Unlike Jade, this man was very ugly and you do not want him anywhere near you thank you very much.  
They also have ginormous wings, like Dave. But where Daves wings were sleek, shiny and well cared for (you know this because you groom him every night), the figures wings were greasy unkempt.

“Time for your conversion of course!”

The figure stepped closer, brandishing a gleaming sword. You struggle fruitlessly against your bonds as the figure marches closer and closer.  
Finally, they’re so close you can almost feel his fur brushing against your arm.  
They raise the sword up high. With one quick, fast movement, they bring the sword down into your chest.

Pain explodes from your chest. You can’t focus on anything properly. You struggle to hold back screams and fail to hold back tears.

After what feels like an eternity, the pain fades away, alongside everything else.  
You think you’re dead.

 

Your name is Jade Harley and it has been a month since your cousin was kidnapped.

In that time, a lot of shit has happened.  
A few days after Jon was kidnapped, Sollux showed up, much like Aradia did. Together, Equius, Sollux and yourself teamed up to finish Equius’s project—a soulbot for Aradia. She’s grown much more violent since then, and much creepier too. Seriously, how she can sneak into rooms so quietly you have no idea.  
Nepeta, Rose, Eridan, Vriska and yourself have set up a sort of roleplaying club in one of the underground rooms. Aradia joins in sometimes.   
Kanaya has fully established herself as ‘group mum’. She was before, but with the extra members of the group, she really is the mum none of you had.  
Every night, you and Feferi hang out in the dream bubbles. While you explore, the two of you look out for John. You haven’t found any sign of him so far. Feferi said that’s ok though, and says you are doing brilliantly. She insisted that you rescue her last for some strange reason.  
Everyone is upset that Jon is gone—none more so than Dave.  
He tries to hide his fear and worry with jokes, but you and Rose can tell.

You’ve sent out countless search parties, but with no results. With every passing failed search, Dave gets quieter and quieter.  
You’re worried that if you don’t find John soon, he’ll never be able to get out of the depressive state he’s in.

You are interrupted from your depressing state of thinking by a loud, urgent knock on the door.

Unfortunately for you, everyone is elsewhere, doing random bullshit. You think Rose and Kanaya are cooking in the kitchen. Dave is hiding in his room. Equius and Sollux are working on some sort of super robot together. The roleplay club is in order, and you can hear their shouts all the way from the bottom of the house.  
So that means you have to answer the door.

You get up from the cosy couch cocoon you have made yourself and pad over to the door.

You open the door—to no one.  
Well, you think there’s no one there. Until you look down.

You scream in surprise and step back.

Because there, lying on the doorstep is John.

He looks fine. Surprisingly ok for someone who has been missing for a month. Sure, his hair is slightly longer and messier and he looks pretty dirty, but he looks fine.   
But then you start to notice…things.  
Like how his outline is blurry, as if he’s not quite there.

When you reach down to touch him, your fingers pass right through.

Not sure in what to do, you stand there stunned for a minute.  
But then you snap out of it and call for help.

You’re going to need it.

 

Your name is Dave Strider and you think your boyfriend will be ok.  
I mean, yes, now he’s kind of made of wind, but with the amount of fart jokes you’ve exchanged, he’ll be fine.

He’s sitting on your lap as everyone discusses what to do now. By everyone, you mean Rose, Jade, Kanaya, Equius, Nepeta, John and yourself.

When John came back, not only did he bring his majestic windy bullshit, but with some important information.

“So, you think that they are trying to help us?” Rose questions.  
“No no, I never said that.” John mumbles into your chest.  
“What was that dear? I can’t here you all muffled against Dave’s chest like that.” Rose takes a long, drawn out sip of tea.

John removes his face from your chest and tries again.

“I said I didn’t say that.”  
“Really? I swear you said something.”  
“Rose please.” John looked at her.   
“John, please.” Rose looked back at him.  
They stared at each other for a few minutes before John let out a loud sigh.

“Alright, I have a theory as to why they’re doing this.”  
“We already know why they’re doing this. They’re a cult and they’re really nutty.” Jade interjects, crossing her arms and frowning.  
“No, I mean the whole conversion thing.”  
“But John, it’s ‘how we were before’” Kanaya says mockingly, using air quotes.  
“No no, it was something that was said to me when they took me. Something about us four—“Here he gestures to Rose, Jade, you and himself. “—not being converted in the right order? She said I was supposed to be first, the Jade, then Rose and Dave. But she said there were complications. What did she mean?”

“I have no idea.” You say, a little too quickly for John’s liking.  
Suspicious blue eyes turn up to look at you.   
“Dave? Do you know something?”  
“Nope. Not at all Egderp! Why would you even think that? What, am I? Some suss guy who has all the worlds secrets?” You say, a little nervously. You jostle him around on your lap in a fruitless attempt to get him to forget about it.  
He doesn’t.

“Dave.” He says a little sternly.  
“John.”  
“Dave.”  
“John.”  
“Dave.”  
“David Elizabeth Strider you stop being a difficult piece of shit and tell us what you know about this. It’s important.” Rose interrupts your petty arguing.

“Ok fine.” You reply.  
“So by now, you probably know I wasn’t brought up with the best living conditions.”  
“No. I did not know this.” Equius interrupts but Nepeta shushes him.  
“Anyway um…we were getting pretty tight on money. Turns out puppet porn wasn’t that big of a profit maker after the initial hype for it is over.”  
“I never knew there was hype for those kinds of things.” Kanaya states, staring at you with a look of confusion.  
“Yeah well there is. A lot of hype. I mean, my Bro was the only one in the industry. A lot of hype for a lot of messed up people. But pretty soon, it died down. ‘Not much originality’. After that, other videos began popping up and everyone lost interest.”  
“Right, so no more puppet porn, no more money. Got it.” Kanaya nodded thoughtfully.   
“Exactly Kankan. And no money means no food, or water or electricity.”  
“But…how did you contact us? Or eat or anything?” John asks in a worried tone.  
You laugh, rolling your head back. “Because he joined a gang for money, that’s why.”

A silence went around the room.  
“And I dunno, maybe my Bro trusted them? But I didn’t. I don’t think they liked that very much.”  
John freezes up on your lap.  
“Do you think they didn’t like you enough to kill you?”  
“Probably.” You snort.  
He whirls around to face Jade.

“Jade—your grandpa always played around with radiation—right?”  
“Well yes, Grandpa did but—“  
“Enough to kill?”  
“Well I…? I think so. Radiation can get pretty toxic and I was feeling a little sick before—“  
Satisfied by that answer, John turned to Rose.

“Rose, what about you? I highly doubt your house was set on fire just because’.”  
Rose looked away, a little nervously.  
“Whoa! What do you know there Rose? C’mon, don’t be a stubborn piece of shit.” You mock her tone from earlier.  
She shoots you a look that says ‘oh shut up’.  
“Well you see, there was this one group of kids who weren’t that accepting of me or my sexuality. I’m pretty sure they attempted to burn my house down, but I can’t be sure.”

John nods thoughtfully. “I think…you all were actually going to die. And they’d been keeping tabs on you. So when you were going to die, they sped up the ‘conversion’ or whatever.”  
“That does make sense.” Rose mused.

“Oh! And guys, another thing I have to warn you about is—“

“Kanaya! Vriska just pushed me down the stairs!” The loud, obnoxious voice of Karkat yelled out.  
“Did not! He fell, all by himself.” Vriska crowed back.  
Kanaya sighed loudly. “I have to go deal with this. We’ll talk about this later.”  
Off she goes, to deal with Karkat and Vriskas weird rivalry thing.

Later it is then.

**Author's Note:**

> (: (: (: how fun :) :) :)  
> this is just fan-fucking-tastic isn't it?
> 
> Any feedback is appreciated!  
> Thankyou and enjoy~~


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